Cross the River and Roam the Shore
by speaks
Summary: Collection of unrelated one-shots touching every corner of the love square.
1. Table of Contents

**[1] Table of Contents**

 **[2] Cross the River and Roam the Shore**

The key to a girl's heart is through her iPod.

(Rated G) (Ladybug, Chat Noir, Marinette, Adrien, Nino)

 **[3] A Thousand Times Before**

Muscle memory is a powerful thing.

(Rated G) (Adrien, Marinette)

 **[4] Undertones**

Nino tries to study, Alya is distracted by the Ladyblog, Marinette learns what 'ladynoir' means, and Adrien gets emotional. You know, just your basic average study session... with some REALLY strange undertones.

(Rated G) (Marinette, Adrien, Nino, Alya)

 **[5] Slow Burn**

Adrien goes to extreme measures to save his friendship with Marinette after rejecting her for Ladybug. EXTREME measures. Marinette does not react well. Chaos ensues.

(Rated G) (Adrien, Marinette)

 **[6] Hypotheticals**

Or, the absolute stupidest reveal ever. Goddammit Adrien you REALLY need to learn when to stop talking.

(Rated G) (Adrien, Nino)

 **[7] The Flower Thief**

"Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery, but today you've caught me and are now demanding to come along to make sure the girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft, so now I'm trying to figure out how to break it to you that we're on our way to a cemetery ." AU

(AKA my favorite AU I ever wrote for the awful-aus blog.)

(Rated G) (Marinette, Chat Noir)

 **[8] Can't Stop Making Bad Decisions**

Which situation bodes the least amount of consequences for those involved?

(1) Ladybug and Adrien caught kissing

(2) Ladybug and Chat Noir caught kissing

(3) Marinette and Adrien caught kissing

(4) Marinette and Chat Noir caught kissing

Perhaps if the two in question had discussed this eventuality before the doorknob to the closet they were kissing in started jiggling, they might not have fucked it up so badly. As it were… Well, suffice it to say they should have discussed it beforehand.

(Rated T) (Adrien, Ladybug, Chat Noir, Marinette)

 **[9] Breathless**

Too many calm "I've been meaning to tell you for awhile now" reveals. Not enough frantic "we're about to die" reveals. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )

(Rated T) (Ladybug, Chat Noir, Marinette, Adrien)

 **[10] Akuma Liveblog #62: The Firecracker** (edit: aka the day the ship sailed)

A companion piece to the previous one-shot, Breathless, wherein Alya liveblogs the entire event.

(Rated T) (Alya, Ladybug, Chat Noir, brief cameos from a few others)

 **[11] Guard Dog**

Adrien has a bit of trouble getting over the whole 'Nathaniel putting Marinette in danger' thing. Okay, a lot of trouble.

(Rated G) (Marinette, Adrien, brief cameos from a few others)

 **[12]** **Ma Chérie**

A post-reveal love letter from Adrien to Marinette.

(Rated G) (Adrien, Marinette, Chat Noir, Ladybug)

 **[13] Untitled**

Without even a glance at the keys he struck a full, complex, two-handed chord. "Yep," he declared, drinking in her reaction. "Good as new!"

She couldn't help it. The unbidden image of Chat Noirㅡthe most restless person _alive_ ㅡpracticing at a piano for hours on end was completely at odds with anything she'd ever have guessed about his private life. "You play piano?" she asked incredulously.

(Rated G) (Ladybug, Chat Noir, Marinette, Adrien)

 **[14] Sunshower**

What's a bug to do when her cat falls off a metaphorical cliff for her? Why, dive after him headfirst, of course.

(Rated T) (Ladybug, Chat Noir, Marinette, Adrien)

 **[15] Your Number One**

"Open your eyes," he urged, seeing that she was losing her grasp on consciousness and scared that he still didn't know what to do.

"You're a good cat," Ladybug mumbled. "They're... the cookies are in.. my bag. She likes cookies."

"Who? Your kwami?" Was she asking him to feed her kwami? "I don't understand, Ladybug, where do you want me to take you?"

And even though she was in pain and losing consciousness, the smallest ghost of a smile touched the corner of her mouth. "Home with you?" she whispered. And then she was out.

(Rated T) (Chat Noir, Ladybug, Adrien, Marinette)

 **[16] A 'Coming of Age' Story**

In which Adrien is too precious for this world, Marinette gets a wake-up call, Alya is speechless, and Nino calls it as he sees it. Oh, and Chloe saves the day. Gotta hand it to her, she reeeally knows how to wind Mari up.

(Rated G) (Marinette, Adrien, Alya, Nino, Chloe)

(Deleted scene is Rated T, includes Ladybug and Chat Noir)

 **[17] Smoke and Mirrors**

An alternate scene for the Vulpina episode. (What would have happened if Vulpina had dropped the illusion of Adrien?)

(Rated G) (Ladybug, Chat Noir, Marinette, Adrien)

 **[18] How to Flirt**

The day Adrien moves out of his childhood home is also the day he realizes he doesn't know how to do anything. How to clean, how to cook... and apparently how to flirt with the love of his life, whose identity he has recently learned.

(Rated G) (Adrien, Marinette)

 **[19] There's A Boy**

An amateur photographer catches Ladybug and Chat Noir smooching behind a billboard. Ladybug's parents are unsure how to feel about this.

(Rated G) (Tom, Sabine, Marinette, Ladybug, Adrien, Chat Noir)

 **[20] No Shame**

Drabble. Chat loves a good joke.

(Rated G) (Marinette, Chat Noir)

 **[21] Pink**

Marinette wakes up to find an untransformed Chat Noir sleeping on her bed.

(Rated G) (Marinette, Chat Noir)

 **[22] Much Ado**

Chat demonstrates his thorough command of Shakespearean quotes.

(Rated G) (Marinette, Chat Noir)

 **[23] Growing Up**

Marinette gets sent back in time, where she turns to a young Adrien for help.

(Rated G) (Marinette, Adrien, Ladybug, Chat Noir)

 **[24] Adrien and Mari Hang Out**

Marinette and Adrien are strung up as bait by the latest akuma, and have to help each other to escape.

(Rated G) (Adrien, Marinette)

 **[25] Just One**

Chat Noir tries to cheer up Marinette after rejecting her as Adrien. It's never just one.

(Rated T) (Chat Noir, Marinette)

 **[26] Why Does Ivan Even _Have_ Bunk Beds In His Room?**

That is a great question. More importantly, though, watch at these embarrassing children try to interact with each other.

(Rated G) (Adrien, Marinette) (Cameos: Nino, Nathaniel, Ivan, Alya, Mylene, Juleka)

 **[27] Missed Connection**

Ladybug and Chat face an akuma whose gimmick is making people go all doe-eyed and smoochy on each other. The problem is, the heroes still haven't recovered from the LAST akuma that made them kiss. This could be a problem. Or... maybe not...

(Rated T) (Ladybug, Chat Noir, Marinette, Adrien, Alya)

 **[28] The Regular**

Chat Noir is a regular at this coffee shop, apparently, and the new girl is more than a little flustered.

(Chat Noir)

 **[29] Ever Since**

Drabble. Chat Noir has been acting _really_ weird ever since they found out Hawkmoth's identity.

(Rated G) (Ladybug, Chat Noir)

 **[30] Loose Lips Sail Ships**

Drabble. Ladybug has been missing for awhile now and, on behalf of Paris, Alya is determined to get to the bottom of it.

(Rated G) (Chat Noir, Alya, Marinette)

 **[31] The Truth**

Adrien tries to set up Gabriel with the company helicopter pilot. It doesn't go as planned.

 **[32] Someday**

Ladybug and Chat Noir go to a movie. It's not a date. _Totally_ not a date...

(Rated G) (Ladybug, Chat Noir)


	2. Cross the River

**This is a series of unrelated, disconnected one-shots.**

* * *

 _The collection/fic title comes from the lyrics of the song referenced in this first story:_

Rock it for Me, _by Caravan Palace._

 _.._

* * *

 **Cross the River and Roam the Shore**

* * *

The waning crescent moon hung so thin and brittle in the cloudless sky that Marinette felt sure she would see it vanish before the end of the night. The brisk air stung her cheeks below the mask. Who told Mother Nature this was a reasonable date to usher in the cold? It was hardly November first and already Paris was creeping up on the freezing point. Luckily the suits were well equipped to protect their wearers from the elements. However… her unprotected cheeks were red and her nose felt like an icecube sewed to her face.

Involuntarily, she shivered.

Seeing this, Chat prowled back along the long townhouse roof toward her. "It's almost winter," he reminded her. "Perhaps I should bring along a jacket for the lady, next time."

Behind the mask, Marinette rolled her eyes. "Not necessary. However, I am considering earmuffs."

Chat crawled up onto the edge of the chimney Marinette had taken pause to lean against, and regarded her from above with concern. "You look like you could benefit from nosemuffs too. Your poor Ladybug nose…" With a wry smile he reached toward her face, but she turned away, pretending not to have seen. She could only spurn so many playful advances in one nightㅡsooner or later he was going to get the better of her with that attitude of persistence. Maybe he knew that too. "Not that it's unattractive!" he sputtered above her. "After all, red suits you! It's just that you look... cold. I didn't mean to insult my lady."

"Chill, Chaton." She elbowed his leg playfully. "I'm not insulted. Let's get going, we've still got thirty blocks left to go and I have statistics homework."

Chat gave a long sigh and dropped down beside her. "Me too. Ladies first?"

"No, you go ahead. I'll be right behind you." He quirked an eyebrow at his partner's odd request but she began shoving him toward the roof's edge. "I'll be right behind you! Promise."

She waited until he had disappeared beyond the ledge to fish her iPod from a hidden pocket on the outside of her leg, then set about untangling the earbud cord.

It was inspiring, the opportunities one tiny little pocket could open up once you discovered it. She must have squealed for ten minutes when she'd realized it was there. (Seriously. Ten minutes. Nothing in the entire world beat hidden pockets.) She'd excitedly shared the discovery with her stray cat a few nights ago and was totally let down by his reaction. Nonplussed, he had pointed out five ( _five_ ) different pockets strategically placed around his suit, and dutifully demonstrated their depth.

(Five! Really big! Pockets!)

Marinette had scowled in return, assuring him that it was a girl thing to be robbed of pockets and therefore a girl thing to be excited by each and every precious one. When she was a designer, by god every dress would have two pockets or her name was not Ladyb… uhh, or her name was not Marinette. It was as easy to forget that Ladybug was not a designer as it was to forget that Marinette was not a fighter.

So engrossed was Marinette in her passionate feelings about pockets and their relationship with institutionalized sexism within the fashion industry as she poked her earbuds in, that she didn't notice Chat, who had stopped just one roof over to watch her with raw curiosity.

When she caught up to him he turned away from the moon, his face splitting into a grin, and said something to her. Probably something suggestive, she thought, from the shameless Cheshire grin he was directing at her. But she didn't hear it through the smooth new age jazz blasting in her ears. With a smirk she pointed to her earbuds, which flipped his grin to a pout. It was probably best that she hadn't heard him. Seriously, she could only spurn so many advances in one night. Sooner or later she was going to lose this battle.

Chat started talking again, his expression completely serious this time, something shifting deep in his eyes. Something fluttered alarmingly in her chest, and she swiftly looked away, eyes clinging to the barest sliver of moon. Yes, she was glad she couldn't hear what he was saying if he had that quivering look in his eyes while he was saying it. Oh, hell. She was going to lose this battle, wasn't she?

Gingerly, she pulled one of her earbuds out. "I'm just messing with you, Chat. What is it? Cat puns? Couldn't wait till my song was over?"

"I was trying to tell you it's the end of the route," he whined, clearly put out at having been wilfully ignored. "That's eleventh avenue down there." He gestured behind him toward the busy street below. Surprised, Marinette glanced over his shoulder. He was right, this was as far as they'd planned to go on tonight's patrol. "And I was wondering…"

He faltered, scratching his cheek until she caught his eye. "What?" she ventured suspiciously.

If she wasn't mistaken, his cheeks reddened, ever so slightly. Though it was always hard to tell in the frigid autumn air what was _I'm cold_ and what was _I'm nervous._ "You know me," he smirked," shaking off the sudden bout of nerves. "Always curious. What…" He pointed to the iPod in her hands. "What are you listening to, Ladybug?"

The question caught her off guard. His tone was so hopeful. Yet… As she appraised him, he seemed tense. Guarded. Cautious. Ah, so that was it. Chat was afraid she wouldn't answer him. After all, it was a fairly personal question.

After a thick moment, she handed him the iPod so he could look at the album cover. After all, she had promised herself she would answer more of his questions. She had promised him that. It was time.

"Caravan Palace?" he read. "I've never heard of them."

"It's electroswing," she explained, plucking the iPod back out of his hands before he could peruse the rest of its contents. He looked a bit thrown by the term, so she slid down onto the brickwork and offered him one of her earbuds.

He sat too, accepting the earbud the way a cat might accept a fish. Marinette skipped to the next song in the album so he could hear one from the beginning. Oh, this was her running favorite! _Rock It For Me_. "It makes for good exercising music," she reasoned, trying to make sense of the Pollack splatter of emotions fighting for control of his facial muscles.

Finally, he seemed to give up trying to pick an emotion and turned toward her, biting his lip. "It makes for good dancing music too," he added, then looked down, struggling with his next words. Marinette heart stopped; for a brief moment she was totally certain he was going to ask her to dance. But instead he looked back up at her, tentatively for once, face half hidden behind his unruly mane of hair. "I'm… surprised."

That threw her off. "By what?" In their ears the song gained momentum, strings sliding upward and brass beating a rhythm into their bones.

"Your taste in music." His smile began to return, slowly but surely. "You're always full of surprises, Ladybug."

For some reason this flustered her. A simple patrol had become something intimate. "And you, Chat Noir."

They lingered there above eleventh avenue for longer than they normally lingered, past the end of their patrol. Only when the clock ticked past midnight did Chat reluctantly remove the earbud from his ear and hand it over. Marinette accepted his offer to help her to her feet, and noticed only as they were leaving that her prediction had come true. The last faintest sliver of the crescent moon was gone. And she dared to entertain, just for a moment as Chat saluted and back flipped off the building onto the fire escape below, that something else had vanished as well. Something far more dear.

But, like the moon, that which they had lost would return again as something new.

.

.

The new moon passed and by Monday morning the hair thin crescent of sunlight had reappeared on the other side of the moon, waxing imperceptibly near Venus in the soft pink daylight. Adrien had been distracted all weekend. He'd hoped to exorcise it from his system before school on Monday, but that was a foolish, futile thought. How could he focus on _school_ when he'd gotten yet another tantalizing glimpse beneath the mask of the one he loved?

Answer: he couldn't.

"Would you stop that." Nino stole his pencil from him and hit him on the head with it before handing it back. "I'm never gonna finish these statistics problems before next period if you keep fidgeting like that."

"Sorry, Nino. I can't help it," Adrien pouted. "I'm just…"

He trailed off, thinking of Ladybug. Thinking about the kind of girl that would like electroswing and also being Ladybug. The kind of girl that would rebuff him so smoothly, yet take a moment to blush when she thought he wasn't looking. The kind of girl that would save Paris by night and turn in her homework on time come Monday.

His own statistics homework unfinished and forgotten in his backpack, Adrien scanned the cafeteria, wondering at the odds of his lady turning out to be someone he knew. The odds of his lady attending the same school. Really, there were only so many schools in Paris. The odds weren't astronomical. A quiet insistent whine droned at the back of his throat as Adrien scanned the sea of heads, trying to calculate the odds of Ladybug being in the same room as him right now. The odds of him meeting her eye from across the room and recognizing her for who she was. He tore his eyes from the cafeteria, looking instead to the double doors next to his table, contemplating escape from this torture. Maybe he should just take the day off to clear his head.

A group of people straggled in through the doors at that moment, and at the tail end of the crowd were Alya and Marinette, the last of which waved shyly as she caught the full brunt of his intense gaze.

Before he could react his phone rang.

He fished it out of his pocket, and saw with some surprise that it was Nino calling. He turned to his left, where to his knowledge Nino was sitting, only to find that the seat had been vacated. He answered the call a second before it went to voicemail. "Nino?"

"You are so distracted it's not even funny," Nino laughed on the other end of the line. "You didn't even notice me leaving!"

Adrien groaned, pressing his face into his hand. "I'm sorry! It's justㅡI had a weird weekend. There's this... thing I can't stop thinking about."

"Uhuh." He could practically see the smug look on his best friend's face. "She must have really thrown you for a loop this time."

"What? Who?!" How did he know aboutㅡ

"Your mystery girl," Nino shot back. "Come on, don't play dumb, I know you have one. Just promise me I can meet her whenever you guys work it out."

"We'll see." He wondered what Nino would say if he knew Adrien had yet to meet her himself.

"Crap, gotta go. Just got to the library and I'm getting death glares. See you in class!"

Adrien tossed his phone aside on the bench and almost jumped when he looked up. Marinette had taken a seat across from him without him even realizing it. Dang, he really was distracted. "Marinette. Hey."

"Uh. H-Hey," she stammered, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I just wanted to say… uh…" She lost her train of thought and pointed aimlessly at his phone. "I like your ringtone." She blushed, unable to meet his eyes as she confessed, "That's my favorite song."

"Oh… Really?" He leaned forward on one elbow. The cafeteria cacophony seemed to dim around them, the colors behind her blurring until he could see nothing but herㅡthe uncertain tilt to her head, the dense fibers of her cotton jacket, the pinpoint freckles on her pink cheeks. "It's my favorite song too." He neglected to mention he'd only first heard it three nights ago, on a rooftop downtown.

She shouldered her backpack, like she was going to stand, but didn't make any real attempt to do so. "You probably already know, but the band's tour is ending with one last show in Paris next week. I got tickets ages ago, but Alya just _hates_ electronic music of any kind and she'd be thrilled if I found someone else to go with…" Marinette punctuated the end of the statement with an audible question mark, and tapped the table nervously.

"I'd love to," he blurted, a little too loudly. A few seats down, two freshman shot them rude glares while a third snickered. It was Adrien's turn to flush. Marinette wanted him to go with her to see Caravan Palace in concert? This… couldn't just be a coincidence.

Could it?

 _What were the odds?_

"Really?" Marinette sounded incredulous at his quick acceptance. "Wow, this'll be… fun." She giggled. Then giggled a little more before the self-consciousness returned full throttle. "Sorry," she squeaked. "I just haven't met many people that actually enjoyed them. Just one other, actually."

Adrien blinked. "Same," he agreed. "Just one other."

Marinette stopped her tapping and shot him a quick, furtive look, a sharp glint in her eye that he wasn't used to seeing there at all. A brief moment. They locked eyes, questions burning, unvoiced, but only barely. Adrien furrowed his eyebrows, silently calculating the odds that out of all the girls in Paris, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was the one behind Ladybug's mask.

Marinette cracked before he did. "Okay, so I'll text you about uh, the time. And everything," she rambled. "Or actually, I'll see you a bunch before then so maybe I won't have to. Or you know, I'm not even sure I have your number saved!"

"I'll text you tonight," he assured her, halfway to a laughing fit. "I'm pretty sure I have yours. We can square the plans away after class. And… thanks, Marinette."

Marinette nodded, and tripped over the bench as she scrambled backwards off of it, then practically sprinted from the cafeteria. Adrien watched her go with detachment, his mind racing. His phone started to ring again but he didn't hear it at all, instead reaching into his backpack to pull out a tiny red notepad.

Glancing behind him to make sure no one was near, he flipped through the pages and pages of detective work. He didn't feel bad about keeping this notebook. Ladybug had explicitly allowed him to seek her secret identity.

He remembered that conversation with stark clarity.

" _I'm not going to tell you who I am, but I certainly won't stop you from trying to figure it out."_ After that bold proclamation, she had winked.

It was a challenge. _Catch me if you can._

Adrien flipped all the way to the points system near the back of the notepad. He scanned the list of names, dozens of them: all the possible suspects out of everyone he knew, and next to each of them a running tally of Lady points (aka, qualities or moments that lent any degree of credence or suggestion to their being Ladybug). Most had few to no marks; some had even had marks taken away, their place on the page marked by erasure scars. Some had as many as five or six points, but Adrien scanned right past them toward Marinette's name. There she was at the bottom of the last page. He sat back in his seat, tapping his pencil on the page, lost in thought.

After a long minute he leaned forward and scratched three more tally marks at the end of her stretch of tallies, barely squeezing them onto the end of the line. He sat back again, staring at her name, at the long trail of points screaming _Lady, Lady, Lady_. All twenty-two of them. _Lady_.

He closed up his notebook and threw it back in in his backpack. Maybe he'd forgotten to do his weekend statistics homework for two weekends in a row, but he didn't need to be a mathematician to know that the odds that Marinette was Ladybug were high.


	3. A Thousand Times Before

_So in almost every fandom I join I end up starting a collection of one-shots. So that's what this is about to turn into. This is totally, completely unrelated to the first chapter. Any chapters in here will be unrelated one shots. One shots are so fun! This one's super short, but I assure you that due to the hyper-accelerated rate at which I've been sucked into this sinful fandom, there will assuredly be more._

 _Anyway, enjoy._

...

* * *

 **A Thousand Times Before**

* * *

As he walked away from Marinette, Adrien clutched his copy of the latest Jagged Stone album to his chest, fighting the urge to cackle with delight. He still couldn't believe he _personally knew_ the artist who had designed the cover! When he'd heard about it secondhand he had sprinted all the way back home for his copy and all the way back. Even when he was a decaying old man this was still going to be his most treasured possession, he just knew it. Sure, he'd met famous people before, had plenty of things autographed, even had autographed items gifted to him… but there was something special to be said for receiving an autograph from a friend. Now whenever he looked at the framed album cover (because how could he not frame it, honestly) he wouldn't just see the art or the autograph. He would see Marinette, his talented friend.

Across the courtyard Nino was talking to Kim and Max as he waited for Adrien to return from his mission. Adrien waved and put a skip in his step as the warning bell rang, indicating class would begin soon.

He was eternally grateful that she'd taken the time to sign his album. He himself simply _abhorred_ giving autographs. But then again, that was because he had to give them all the time and after awhile it grew debilitatingly tiresome and repetitive. Although, he may have to revisit that stance now that he'd finally experienced the feeling of receiving a desperately desired autograph. How could he deprive a fan of that? Even more thankful that she'd helped him see from the other side of the pen, he swiveled around to wave at her one more time.

Marinette was still standing frozen in the same spot, and flushed when he turned around before waving meekly back at him. He couldn't help but smile. To be honest, her reaction had caught him a little off guard. She'd been surprised when she first realized he wanted her signature, and not Jagged Stone's, which was understandable. But then… she had accepted the pen with dignity and signed in one swift flurry of motion while keeping total eye contact with him, never once even looking down at the paper. Kind of odd. It reminded him of…

Huh.

From the edge of the courtyard Nino was frantically urging him to hurry, lest he be late, and let out a frustrated huff when Adrien slowed to a halt still ten meters away. A very weird thought had occurred to him, settling in his brain like wet concrete and trickling all the way down to his toes. Marinette had signed her signature in the exact same manner he always signed his. Quickly and easily, absent-mindedly and second-naturedly. Like she'd done it a thousand times before.

That didn't make sense. Marinette wasn't… Why would she have experience signing autographs?

The way she'd flashed the pen across the paper, the one smooth swoop followed by the quick succession of short, sharp jabs… It tickled a memory at the back of his brain. It reminded him of something.

"I'll see you in class, bro," Nino called out as Adrien continued to stand stock still, hand on his chin in deep concentration. "I'll just tell them you turned into a zombie, then, right? Okay. Okay… bye…"

Adrien didn't even hear Nino, or see him leave. After another moment he was totally alone in the empty courtyard, trying desperately to put his finger on the fleeting rush of familiarity he felt whenever he thought about that sequence. The swoop and the short jabs, the confident smile that replaced her uncertain one as she wrote… Why was it familiar?

Ugh. It wasn't! He was being stupid. It was just a simple autograph.

Shaking it off, he opened his bag and tucked the album gently inside, making a second mental note to have it framed later tonight before the corners got nicked. But as soon as he pushed it in, there was an equal and opposite force shoving it right back out into the air. "Woah, woah, woah, what is _this?"_ Plagg hissed.

Adrien glanced around before pushing back against his kwami. "Plagg, stop it, I have to go to class."

But the little black kwami was eerily strong for his size, and ripped the album from Adrien's grasp, then flew upward to hold it in front of his face. "You gonna explain this or not, lover boy? I thought I said you guys weren't allowed to know each other's secret identities!"

"What? Secret iden...oh." Shock whipped through Adrien's chest as his eyes finally focused on the album cover. For all his excitement over getting it signed, he'd failed to actually _look_ at the signature. Right there on the front cover, there it was. But it wasn't Marinette's name. It was something much more familiarㅡmuch more achingly, tantalizingly familiarㅡthe simple inked image he'd seen her sign a thousand times before.

A ladybug.

* * *

...

 _I literally just finished watching this show for the first time yesterday. I couldn't stop thinking about this during that scene. Like think about it, it would be SO EASY to mess up! How does Adrien not accidentally write Adrien Agreste when Chat fans ask for his signature... I do not understand... Someone help this child..._


	4. Undertones

Listen to Chopin's Nocturne Op 9 No 2 while reading this for the best results. ;)

* * *

 **Undertones**

"Ya know, when I asked if you guys wanted to study with us I kinda figured you'd be studying."

"We're studying," Marinette defended quickly, snapping her eyes back to her history textbook. She hadn't been, actually. She'd been sneakily glancing at Adrien, who was reading from his own history textbook next to Nino, across the picnic table where they'd settled in the park. The late afternoon sun was hitting him just right, so that his hair glowed and his eyes shone like sunrays through summer leaves. Ah, the golden hour of photography...

Right! Studying! She reburied her nose in the end-chapter notes as Nino began to snicker.

"And what about you?" Nino turned a page without looking as he refocused his accusative gaze on Alya, who (when Marinette turned to look) was dicking around on her blog instead of studying.

"I'm getting around to it," Alya sassed. "I was gonna put on some studying music, so you're welcome. Um, excuse you!"

Nino had reached across the table to pull her screen down flat in order to lean over and see what was on display there. "Lies!" he laughed, while Alya donned a very offended expression and yanked her computer screen back up to its rightful position. "You're doing Ladyblog stuff!"

"Can you believe this fool?" Alya said to Marinette, jabbing her thumb in his direction.

"Don't mess with Alya's computer," Marinette responded instantly. "I tried it once…" She shuddered at the mere memory of her best friend's wrath. "Never again."

"I'll have you know I _am_ putting on music," Alya went on seamlessly, ignoring Nino's suddenly uneasy expression. "One of the blog followers put together a LadyNoir playlist for the blog's homepage, so I thought I'd go ahead and implement it. It'll give us something to listen to while we go over the last chapter. Aaaand there we go. Done!" She pecked one last key and then the sound of tender piano music drifted through her speakers.

Marinette peered up from her history book, too caught up on something Alya had said to continue reading. "LadyNoir?"

"Bleh, this is a love song," Nino complained, standing up in order to read her computer screen upside down without touching it. "I thought it'd be like… action music. Y'know, superhero music."

"I said it was a LadyNoir playlist," Alya reminded him. "Besides, gentler music is better for studying."

"I'm sorry, LadyNoir?" Marinette parroted, still not understanding the word. She was so stuck on it that she didn't notice Adrien had finally torn himself from the chapter to look up at them. "What is that?"

Alya giggled. "Oh, Marinette, you sweet summer child… It's like, their couple name. The songs are supposed to be representative of that. You know," she giggled manically. "Their love!"

Nino gagged at that, his eyes narrowing as he continued to read the blog's playlist upside down. "Ugh, these are _all_ love songs! This is one of those shipping things you were talking about, isn't it? How am I supposed to study when the sappiest love song ever is drowning my eardrums?"

Marinette bit her lip as she too leaned over to catch the title of the incredibly romantic piano tune that was currently spilling out of her speakers into the golden afternoon.

( I) _Now playing: Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2_

"It is a bit sappy, isn't it?" she protested weakly. This was the heaviest, most passionate piano song she'd ever heard in her life, laced with minor keys that rolled into the major. She was certain her cheeks were the same color as the red brick under their feet. So embarrassing. It was times like these that she was most grateful that no one knew she was Ladybug. She'd die.

Nino rolled his eyes. "Yeah, definitely the sappiest thing I've ever-oh my god, Adrien, bro, are you crying?"

Marinette and Alya both whipped their heads toward Adrien in surprise, who had so far been absolutely silent through the conversation. He had a distant, faraway look in his eyes and, to their shock, he _had_ in fact teared up. Quite a bit. Even as their mouths fell open wordlessly a tear spilt from his right eye and he turned away from them to swiftly wiping at his face.

"Um, no," he lied. "Allergies?" he lied again.

"Dude," Nino deadpanned. "You hopeless sap!"

"It's not my fault," he grumbled bashfully. "My, um…" He drummed his fingers on the table, still facing away from all his friends. "My mother used to play that song when I was a kid. Before she..."

"...Oh. Oh man, I'm sorry…"

"Wait, don't stop it," he blurted, spying Alya's hand moving deftly to the space bar. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get all emotional on you guys." A genuine grin lit up his face and he laid one hand on the back of his neck. "I just really love that song. Besides, I uh… I think it fits the playlist perfectly."

At that Nino groaned. "Ugh, no, not you too."

"I'm with Nino," Marinette admitted, eager to steer the subject away from anything that got Adrien that upset. The sight twisted her heart painfully. "I don't know if I'd pick _love songs_ if _I_ was the one curating that blog of yours. Chat and Lady aren't a thing." Marinette gave Alya the stinkeye.

"Why not?" Adrien wondered, leaning forward onto his forgotten textbook, accidentally dog-earing a couple pages in the process. "I mean, maybe they're not a thing _yet_ , but it's obvious that he's madly in love with her."

Butterflies swooped through Marinette's stomach so suddenly that she almost forgot how gravity worked and was sure for a second that she was falling into the sky. The look in his vivid green eyes was so _raw_. Adrien was staring at her so earnestly that she had to look down, lest she experience immediate heart failure.

"I don't kn-know about, um, about all that," Marinette stammered, slipping back into her old stammering ways under that intense stare of his. "Love? I always sort of figured he was just a flirt. Nothing more."

"I don't think so," he reacted instantly, and he sounded so certain that Marinette could do nothing but believe him. "Chat's in love with her. Anyone could see that, the way he looks at her." He looked down at his book, realizing belatedly that he had crinkled up a bunch of pages when he put his whole weight on them. Sighing to himself, he vainly attempted to smooth them out. "Maybe Ladybug should give him an honest chance."

Struck by his sincerity, Marinette found herself feeling suddenly ashamed of the way she'd spurned Chat so readily in the past, the way she'd never given his interest any real weight when she considered him. Maybe Adrien was right. Maybe Chat deserved a chance. She couldn't believe she was saying this to the boy she was madly in love with, but… "You never know," she muttered. "Maybe she will give him a chance."

When she looked back up she wasn't expecting to see Adrien still staring at her, straight at her, like he was seeing through her to her very soul. "You really think so?" he asked, his voice laced with an emotion she couldn't place.

"Sure," she whispered. "He deserves it, don't you think?"

Adrien's face lit up at her words, and he had to train his eyes back on his book in order to evade Marinette's curious gaze. Why did he care so much, she wondered?

The other two friends at the table watched this interaction with fascinated detachment, almost like field researchers in the wild, jotting down observations on the animals. Nino whispered to Alya behind his hand. "Is it just me, or are there… _undertones_ to this conversation."

Alya just shrugged. She pulled her own textbook out of her bag as Maman Agreste's favorite nocturne ended and the next song took its place in their ears, leading the atmosphere away from the serious one it had become back into one that was more lighthearted.

"Nino," she whispered back, "with these two there are _always_ undertones."

* * *

.

.

Wrote this thing as pre-reveal. But when I went back and edited it, it really seemed like maybe Adrien knew more than he was letting on about Marinette...

So you can interpret this as half-reveal...

If you want...

I certainly wouldn't deny it.


	5. Slow Burn

_This one is long and absolutely shameless. Don't look at me..._

* * *

 **Slow Burn**

* * *

 _Slow burn._

That was how Adrien would describe his friendship with Marinette.

Down on the sidewalk below her bakery, he paced back and forth, torn by what he was about to do. Torn by the fact that in one fell swoop he might delete all the slow, hard-earned progress he'd made with her. Torn by the fact that he might have already deleted it and the crazy stunt he was about to enact was too little too late in salvaging the pieces.

"This a stupid idea," Plagg hissed from inside his jacket.

"Shut up," Adrien hissed back though his teeth. "Someone might hear you." He jumped as a family emerged from the Dupain-Cheng bakery. last kid out let the door swing so wide that Marinette's mother spotted Adrien standing outside. She clinked the register drawer shut and waved.

With a nervous smile, Adrien waved back. Now he _had_ to go inside. Fate must be telling him to abandon all caution and go for it!

"Hi, Sabine."

"Hello dear." The small woman paused while ringing up the next customer in line in order to to push a domed plate of cookies his way. "Marinette's upstairs. Go on up."

"Thanks." With one last polite wave he pocketed a couple extras for Plagg, then headed toward the back to ascend the stairs into the residence portion of the unit. But he paused upon entering the living room of the house, taking a moment to smile at the familiar family photo placed lovingly by the doors.

In all honesty, Adrien wasn't totally sure how he and Marinette ever ended up this close. There was a time when he thought she hated him. But that hadn't been true at all. Marinette didn't hate anyone. (Well… except Chloe.) Ugh, Chloe. Thoughts of Chloe threatened his tentatively-good mood. Friendship with Chloe was not much more than a lingering side effect of all those years being paraded around by his dad like a show horse. It almost didn't even count. He certainly wouldn't put Chloe up there with someone like Nino, or _Ladybug_ , that was for damn sure.

Meeting Ladybug on the day he got his powers was the first glimpse of what friendship could be. It made him curious. Eager for more. So eager that when Nino offered the next day, Adrien leapt on it with no hesitations. Nino's friendship was the assurance that yes, that glimpse he'd caught when he met Ladybug the day before was real and true and oh-so-attainable. Before them, Adrien didn't even realize people could _be_ that close to each other. It was like, _Ohh… So this is what friends are_. A whole new shiny world had been opened up before him, and from then on he wanted nothing more out of life than to experience that closeness again and again with as many people as possible.

Of course, not everyone was receptive to that. (Chloe, for one, didn't take kindly to his "weirdo" attempts to actually get to know her better.)

But Marinette was receptive. Maybe she'd been shy around him at first but once he decided to be her friend, it was like night and day. Boom, she was an open door. And he loved it. Marinette turned out to be exactly the kind of person he wanted more of in his life; someone who was selfless, kind, and clever. Someone good. Someone who made him feel good too.

Back in the living room of the duplex, Adrien had to blink away the thoughts swimming through his head and turn away from the family photo on the bookshelf. Plagg emerged from his pocket then, telltale cookie crumbs all over his face. The little kwami made a face like he was about to complain about the choice of sustenance Adrien had offered, so Adrien shoved him back inside his jacket before he could talk.

"Deal with it," he whispered. "Mari now, cheese later."

He had to make it upstairs and go through with this before he lost his nerve. He sighed, giving the family photo one more furtive glance. Marinette's wide, happy smile sparkled back at him. Was this really such a good idea?

Maybe he should have just left her alone in the first place.

Maybe he was selfish for loving the way she made him feel when he'd always sort of known he was going to break her heart.

Adrien had never been very adept at the whole making-friends thing, and even when he thought he made one, much of the time they turned out to be fake. Fans who couldn't look past the glossy paper even after they got to know him, or even people who wanted to take advantage of him via his money, his connections, or his name. So when Adrien made real friends, true friends, a lot of thought went into it. A lot of heart and soul.

He'd already elected to pursue a meaningful friendship with Marinette when he realized she had a thing for him. (Sure he was a little dense, at times, but it grew glaringly obvious after awhile.) So was he wrong for pursuing friendship her anyway, even though he was in love with someone else? At the time he was aware that the situation might very well end in heartache for her, but he liked her so much that he couldn't bear the thought of just _not_ being friends with her. That didn't feel like a solution at all. How would that have been fair to him, or _her_ for that matter? He couldn't do that to her. Despite his misgivings, he went for it. Friends.

"Coming!" Marinette called from above as he knocked on the attic door.

"Wish me luck," Adrien muttered to Plagg, following her footsteps above with his eyes.

"Luck, huh? Thinking of your lovebug at a time like this? Ice cold."

Adrien flushed. "This isn't about Lady," he growled, "this is about-Marinette! Hi!"

She wrinkled her nose at him, the afternoon sun from the west-facing window cresting on her cheek. Dust sparkled between them in hazy channels of light. "Oh, uh… Hey, Adrien. I didn't think you were gonna come by today." After her initial pout, she snapped out of it back into her normal chipper self. "Sorry, you can come on in but I'm afraid my room's a total disaster zone. I've been working on a project."

The trapdoor clicked shut behind him as he climbed into her room. "I don't mind." But even as he said so she zoomed around her bedroom, scooping up stretches of fabric and jamming them into lush decorative boxes, and shoving the complicated set of fabric tools off her bed into a pile in order to offer him a seat. Adrien could only stare. Marinette was such a good person. _Too_ good. Too good for him anyway. She deserved a lot more than what he had to offer, which was nothing (owing to the fact that he'd pretty much gift wrapped his heart for Ladybug three years ago, the day he met her).

The two of them had been hanging out for well over a year when Marinette finally got up the nerve to tell him how she felt. They'd been watching a movie on his laptop in her room, he sitting on the floor with it on his lap and she laying on her stomach on the bed behind him, her face dangerously close to his. When the credits rolled and he announced that he'd better head out "lest your parents go all Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett and bake me into a meat pie," she'd turned to him with a strange sparkle of determination in her eye.

"Hey," she'd said. "I hope this isn't weird, but I'm... kind of in love with you."

Adrien went slackjawed. How was he supposed to react? He never expected her to just… to just say it like that!

From _whence_ did she _even_ pluck the _nerve?!_

If he had even _half_ the nerve he'd have popped the ultimate question to Ladybug a year ago!

His mouth flapped open and shut. "Marinette…!"

At his tone she buried her face in her forearms and made a high pitched groaning noise that was frankly concerning. "I'm sorry, that was totally awkward. You don't have to respond if you don't want, or you can just leave now if you-" She squeaked and flinched when he laid a gentle hand on the back of her buried head.

"I'm not gonna leave," he assured her, finally relocating the synapses in his brain that connected his tongue to the French language. "In fact, don't freak out, but, I've kinda known that for awhile now."

Her head snapped up at lightspeed, dislodging his hand. "What? For real? It's been that obvious?"

"I only figured it out when we started spending so much time together." He tapped his forefingers together reluctantly. Crap, he should have prepared better for this. Why didn't they teach you this stuff in preschool?

"And you still wanted to hang out with me anyway?" she responded incredulously. He could tell she was already picking up on his intentions, then, to let her down as gently as unrequited love would allow.

"Of course I did. Marinette, I really like you. You're one of my best friends in the world. I… I think I could even love you too, if…" He swallowed, the words sticking in his throat. "If my heart didn't already belong to someone else."

"Oh." She went quiet for a moment and Adrien didn't dare look at her, terrified that she was deciding she wanted nothing more to do with him now that he'd rejected her. But she did no such thing. "Who is it?" she prompted gently.

That, he was not expecting. "Umm…" She was _so_ not going to take him seriously if he said Ladybug! "I don't think you know her."

"Can I meet her?"

Adrien grimaced. "I don't know…"

"No, you're right, it would be weird."

"Are you, um… okay? Marinette?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." But her tone was so… forlorn. And she wouldn't look him in the eye. Crud, she didn't believe that there was another girl at all, did she? She thought he was rejecting her _and_ lying to her. "I appreciate you being honest with me," she sighed, like she didn't really believe him at all. "Really, it's fine. I love being friends with you too much to let something like this ruin it. In fact, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now I can get over it!" She talked faster now, gleeful and giddy in an almost manic way. "Maybe you could tell me about her tomorrow?"

Adrien caught her eye. "Yeah," he sighed. "Okay."

When he got home that night, Plagg had a field day with Adrien's sort-of promise. "You're gonna tell Marinette, the friend that's been in love with you since the day you met, that you won't give her a chance because you love _Ladybug?"_ The kwami doubled over cackling in midair and took a solid minute to catch his breath.

Adrien crossed his arms. This was so not funny to him. "She's important to me," he reasoned, arguing with himself as much as he was with Plagg. "She deserves to know why it wouldn't work between us."

Plagg wheezed. "She's gonna think you're a lovesick starstruck moron." Adrien flicked him so hard that he hit the mirror and bounced off with a disgraced, " _Yow!"_

"Not if she knows I'm Chat Noir," he whispered vehemently.

"What!" Plagg choked.

"If she knew I was Chat then she would understand. Marinette's a romantic at heart, just like me," he explained patiently with one hand over his chest. "She would see that my faithful love for Ladybug makes it impossible for me to even think about dating anyone else. _Everyone_ knows that Chat loves Lady, thanks to Alya's ever-invasive, ever-persuasive blog. Marinette would get it. And then... maybe she'd be a little less heartbroken." That would be ideal.

"Maybe," Plagg shrieked. "Or maybe you're an imbecile and this is a terrible plan!"

"Marinette's one of my best friends," he deadpanned. "If I can't trust _her_ with my secret then I can't trust anyone. Besides, it'll be good practice for telling Ladybug someday."

But when he was actually standing in front of Marinette in her room the very next afternoon, ready to tell her exactly why he couldn't go down that road with her (as interesting as the road looked..), he found that the language synapses in his brain had once again gone haywire.

"What?" Marinette grew uncomfortable under his stare. "This is about yesterday, isn't it? I'm really sorry if I made you uncomfortable," she groaned. "It just felt wrong keeping it to myself any longer, like I was lying to you by not telling you."

"No, that's not it at all! I mean yes this is about yesterday," he corrected earnestly, "but you haven't done anything wrong. In fact, if withholding information is lying then _I'm_ the one who's been lying to _you_."

That threw her for a loop. "Huh? How so?"

"Marinette…" He took a deep breath. Showtime. "You might want to sit down."

"Ummm…" Very slowly and painstakingly she backed away from him and sat on her newly cleaned bed, fingers clenching into the quilted comforter. "Okay," she said nervously. "Sitting."

"I have to tell you something very important. You'll understand why I can't… why we can't… be anything. Once I tell you."

"Oh, that. Okay." She smiled at him, but sadly. "Go."

First her cleared his throat, then he got down on one knee so he was eye level with her. Then he panicked. This was _proposal stance!_ With an anxious grimace he tried to stand again but tripped on his shoelace and went sprawling backwards, ending up flat on his ass.

Marinette looked like she wanted to help, but was wary and suspicious. "What's gotten into you?" she wondered. "Usually I'm the spaz."

"Sorry," he groaned, then pulled his legs into a cross-legged position in front of her and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "It's just that I've never confessed this to anyone before. _Anyone_ ," he emphasized, hoping she got the message. _You are important._ "So I'm having trouble spitting it out."

"Oh, a secret?" she surmised conspiratorially, hiding a giggle behind her hand. "About this lady of yours?"

He flushed at her casual bullseye. "No. I mean yes. I mean… ugh." He took a second to press his hand over his eyes and center himself. He could feel Plagg shaking with laughter inside his jacket and fought the urge to smash him. "The secret is about me, not her." For a clearheaded moment he met her eyes head on and steeled himself as her giggle faded to surprise; she saw how serious he was about this. "Marinette, we've been friends for a long time. I would trust you with my life, so I know I can trust you with this secret. I'm…" His other name stuck in his throat and he but his lip so hard that it might have bled if Marinette hadn't intervened.

"Woah, you look so intense," she fretted, sliding off the bed onto her knees in front of him. "What is it, Adrien? You know you can tell me anything."

He gave her one last rueful smile-a final salute to the end of their friendship as it was and to the beginning of a new chapter. In truth he was beside himself at the prospect of sharing this amazing secret with someone, _finally_. "I know… Princess."

Her eyebrows shot up _. "Princess?"_ Anxiously he watched the gears whirling at Mach 5 in her brain, the surprise turning to shock, the realization setting in that there was only one person who would call her something so stupid so unabashedly.

"You got it," he smirked. "I'm the one and only…"

"No."

"Yours truly…"

"No way!"

"Chat Noir."

"What?" she shrieked, totally ignorant of the charming catlike pose he had just struck. "No you're not! Why would you say that?"

Adrien deflated, squinting at her in confusion. He'd imagined a lot of reactions when he stayed up all night thinking about this, but 'shrieking in offended disbelief and pulling out her hair at the mere idea of such a thing' hadn't crossed his mind even once. "I am," he stated almost emptily. "Why would I lie about something like that?"

"I don't know!" she shouted, flailing up onto her bed now in an effort to get away from him, casting him odd glances over her shoulder all the way.

"Exactly. Because I wouldn't. Why are you so sure that I'm lying?" he added, hurt. He rose to his feet, tucking his hands in his pockets and kicking at a loose corner of her rug. "Is it really so farfetched to think I could be a hero?"

"What? No!" But she was still looking at him like he'd sprouted alien antennae, and clambered to her feet atop the mattress to gesture wildly at him. "You just-you can't be _that_ hero. It's not possible."

Adrien scoffed at that. Sure he could just transform right here and now and prove it once and for all, but he was starting to get miffed that it was apparently so impossible for him to be the hero that he _definitely was._ "I assure you," he snapped, "it's possible, and it's true. I thought you'd understand but maybe that was naive of me. Lady was right. Our hero lives shouldn't mix with our normal lives."

He turned to go.

"So _Ladybug_ is the other girl you were talking about. Ladybug." Marinette flopped down on her bed. "You're Chat Noir and you're in love with Ladybug. _That's_ what you're going with? Seriously? You-you could have just said you didn't love me back, you know!" Marinette slipped into a teary whisper. "You didn't have to make up a crazy story. You could have just said no."

Adrien let the hatch fall shut again without climbing down, and wheeled back toward her instead of leaving. "I'm not lying, Marinette! Why don't you believe me?"

"Because!" she breathed. "You just _can't_ be Chat Noir. I would _know_."

"And why's that?"

She sat up then, fighting back against the tears threatening to leak out, and threw her huge tiger pillow right at him. With a thick _umf_ he stumbled backwards, and when he blinked the faux fur out of his eyes and looked back at her, his heart leapt through his throat. There on her shoulder was a little red speck, very alive, and very much waving at him.

"Because I'm Ladybug. You jerk," she sniffled as an afterthought. "This is my kwami, Tikki. She gives me my powers… You can stop waving now, Tikki, I think he sees you." Tikki shrugged and settled into her collar, giving Adrien the stinkeye. "So. I think I would know if you were Chat Noir."

The look of utter shock on Adrien's face must have been a real sight to behold. He almost wished he could see it himself. As it was, it was all he could do not to collapse into a singularity. So he simply gaped, the whole situation glancing off his skin like he was bulletproof.

"Lady?' he whispered, scarcely audible. He approached her slowly, floorboards creaking beneath his fluorescent converse as he crossed the room. She wouldn't look at him, even when he sat at the edge of her bed and lightly took her hand.

"The one and only," she said, repeating his earlier statement with a pinch of sarcasm.

"Oh man, you are not gonna like this," he laughed, and opened his jacket sleeve to usher Plagg out into Marinette's bedroom. "I told you that you'd fall for me one day, bugaboo."

 _Bugaboo's_ eyes flashed open. First she saw Plagg, grinning bemusedly at her from the bedspread. Then she wheeled toward Adrien, just in time to see him wink, slowly… oh so familiarly.

"Oh my god," she groaned _. "Chat?"_

"To be fair," he noted, "I was so sure I'd know if I ever met you in real life too. I guess we should have been paying more attention."

"This is officially the weirdest. Thing. Ever. And I have fought reanimated corpses! You rejected me for me. Oh my god. _I'm_ the other girl!"

"There's only one girl, as far as I can see. And I've got cat eyes, my dear, so I can see pretty far." He hit her with the most charming smile in his arsenal, and was delighted when it had an immediate effect.

"You can't do that," she whined, pressing both hands to her cheeks. "It hasn't been long enough yet. Give me a second to soak this in! Christ!"

He blinked innocently, pulling her hand ever closer to his lips. "Do what?"

"That!" she scream-whispered. "That Chat stuff, when you're…!" She gestured wildly at him again.

"When I'm me?" he guessed lazily. Man, he could definitely get used to this. Ladybug, flustered by his advances? He must have done something reeeal good nine lives ago if this was the reward he was getting. "So I can't do this?" he wondered, and lovingly kissed her hand.

"Adrien,"she hissed, putting a finger to her lips as soon as he looked up and then pointing downward at the bedspread. There on the soft fabric, Tikki and Plagg were wrapped in a quiet, tight embrace, eyes squeezed shut.

"Aww," Adrien cooed sincerely. "I thought love was for losers."

"You'd say that too if you were 5.6 billion years old," Plagg grumbled, but refused to relinquish his hold on his dear old friend. "Come on, Tikki, let's go out on the balcony. I have a feeling things are about to get gross in here."

"Plagg!" Tikki worried over her shoulder at the two of them as Plagg zoomed toward the balcony. "Please keep it PG," she pleaded.

"PG-13," Adrien haggled, and shot Tikki a finger gun.

"Chat!" Marinette's other pillow hit him in the face. It was incredibly dense-memory foam or something-and knocked him right off the bed onto the hard floor.

Adrien checked to see that Plagg and Tikki had truly left, then righted himself to rest his chin upon the edge of the bed and blink up at her innocently. "Yes, my lady?"

Marinette could only bury her face in her hands at that. After a second of incoherent muttering she flopped forward, laying flat on her stomach. Altogether the whole scene began to remind him of her impromptu confession after last night's movie. "So let me check that I've got this puzzle laid out straight," Adrien said. "The reason you've been dogging my dashing attempts to win your heart was because you were already in love with me?"

She sighed in exasperation and a dangerous idea blossomed into his head. "I guess so."

"Cool," he surmised casually. "Cool, cool… So that means I can kiss you now, right?"

She pushed herself up on her elbows so she could stare down at him with something like loving disgust. Wait, was that even possible? Love and disgust?

Oh shit that made _lust_.

 _Really?_ Now _the language synapses start functioning? Get your heart out of the gutter, Agreste!_

Marinette's 'lust' morphed into straight amusement as panic briefly crossed Adrien's face, then gave way to calm. "I'm freaking out right now," Marinette stated plainly. "Like, actually freaking out. Dying, maybe. How are you not freaking out?"

Adrien shrugged. "I'll freak out tomorrow. Right now I just want to kiss you."

Marinette sighed, leaning toward him ever so slightly… then turned away. "I want to kiss you too. But…"

Shit. There was always a catch. "But what?"

With a petulant groan Marinette wrinkled her nose at him. "But then you're gonna be smug about it _forever_ you mangy cat!"

"Mangy?" he complained. "I'm not mangy. _You're_ ma-" He never got to finish the accusation because Marinette had seized his collar to drag his lips to her own. It took him a second to react, what with his being in desperate need of a defibrillator, but once he finally realized this was real, he surged upward on a set of wings, bringing both hands to her jaw in earnest affection. Upon the additional contact, though, Marinette broke the kiss, shyly looking away through half-lidded eyes.

Not wanting to push it too far, he released her face as soon as she relinquished her death-grip on his collar. But that didn't stop him from grinning like the lovesick idiot he most definitely was. He folded his arms in front of him on the edge of the bed, hiding the lower half of his dopey expression as he blinked up at her in a daze. "Wow," he breathed into his sleeves.

Without seeming to realize it, Marinette inched down until she was laying flat, mirroring the way he rested his chin on his forearms. "It's gonna take some time getting used to this."

Adrien wormed one of his hands out from under his chin until his fingers brushed hers, looping them ever so slightly together. "Can we start now?"

"Ugh, my least favorite kind of cheese." It was Plagg who had spoken, from the window where he and Tikki were peeking in. "They're not done being gross yet, Tikki, let's go back outside."

Marinette couldn't help it: she giggled. "I think we've already started, _Chaton_."

 _Oh no._

"What's wrong?" she blurted, shocked at Adrien's sudden shift from silent delight to gobsmacked distress.

Adrien lurched to his feet, looming over her. "You can't do that," he stammered out. "My-oh my god, Mari, my heart-"

Marinette pulled herself up onto her knees, utterly baffled at the turn of the conversation. "Do what?" she deadpanned, with the barest hint of sarcasm.

"That!" he whined, gesturing at all of her. "That- _Ladybug_ -stuff! My _heart_."

"You love it," she stated simply.

"That's the problem," he groaned. "This is new and I realize we should kind of maybe start over now and take it slow but I just, I love you so _intensely_ already!"

A soft expression took over Marinette's face, and he slowly untensed as she took his hands into hers. "That," she decided, "sounds like the opposite of a problem. I mean, you know how I feel about you already, so really…"

"You're right…" he realized, something incredible dawning on him.

"As always," she reminded him with a smirk.

"And that means I can…"

"You can what? Wait, what are you doing?" Her face morphed into one of total shock. "Oh my god, what are you doing? _What are you doing right now?_ Say something you mangy alley cat!"

In his place on the floor, down on one knee, Adrien allowed a very Cheshire grin to spread across his face. "I've been carrying this around with me everywhere I've gone for a year," he told her as he reached into the pocket inside his jacket for a little black box that never left his side. Her shock elevated beyond the mortal plane when he pulled it out, and he ate up every second of it. "So what do you say?" he asked gently, allowing the barest hint of insecurity to leak into his voice. "Would you make this alley cat into a house cat? Mari? Oh no."

The love of his life had fainted dead away the second he opened the ring box.

He crawled up onto the bed, feeling terrible about what he'd just done to her. _Too much?_ he asked himself. _Yes,_ he answered himself angrily, _definitely too much! Too much too fast! You made her faint!_

But even as he adjusted her unconscious body into a more comfortable position on the bed, he knew that he didn't regret asking her. Because he _thought_ his relationship with Marinette had been a long, slow burn, when she had been his first friend all along.


	6. Hypotheticals

AKA the stupidest reveal in the history of ever.

* * *

 **Hypotheticals**

* * *

"Hey, Adrien? Would you tell me if you were Chat Noir?"

From his seat by Nino on the puffy corduroy couch, Adrien choked on his tea, nearly spitting it onto his controller. Nino snickered as he gained the upperhand in their Pokemon battle, blissfully unaware of Adrien's alarm.

Adrien's eyes dilated to a pinpoint as he watched Nino's Dragonite drain half his Bulbasaur's HP in one fell swoop. _Nino knew he was Chat Noir?_ This meant he _knew_ , right? What else could it possibly mean? He knew! What was this then, some kind of friendship test? Adrien was being tested right now. Oh god, what a nightmare. Nino knew and of course he was hurt and he wanted to know what the hell Adrien was thinking keeping such an enormous secret like that from his best friend. He was upset that he'd been kept out of the loop, and Adrien's answer to this loaded question may very well determine the course of their entire friendship from here on out…

"Dude, it's your turn."

Adrien started when he realized Nino was staring at him, and that the game was idling as it waited for Adrien to select Bulbasaur's next move. "Right," he laughed, and selected one without really looking. All the movies in the world hadn't prepared him for the intricacies of friendship. Whatever was an unlucky black cat to do? "Um… Nino?"

"Yeah bud?" Nino was watching intently to see how much life was sapped from Dragonite by the leech seed attack.

"I probably… wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?" Still intent on the leech seeding.

"Wouldn't tell you if I was Chat Noir."

The attack ended, and Nino let his controller drop into his lap. He leaned back into the couch cushions, hitting Adrien with a nigh unreadable expression. "How come?"

"Well." He drummed his fingers on the armrest, feeling as panicked as he had on the day he'd had to take his chemistry final without studying because of a surprise string of akumas. "If I was Chat Noir," he said carefully, cryptically, "then I'd probably want to tell Ladybug before I told anyone else. They have this… thing. Maybe once I told her, then I'd be free to tell you. Besides, it'd put you in danger to know. You'd probably be an idiot and run out into battle trying to help me or something," he added with a bit of a laugh.

At that, Nino broke into an infectious smile and punched Adrien in the shoulder. "Yeah, you're probably right. I wouldn't blame you, I guess. For not telling me."

Warmth filled Adrien's chest, even as his Bulbasaur keeled over in a dead faint due to Nino's icebeam. What had he ever done to deserve such a friend? Nino had basically just confronted Adrien about lying to his face for two years and then just accepted Adrien's answer without a negative word against him. Nino was so.. so awesome. How could he even _be_ so awesome? It didn't make sense. He was being too chill about this. Not even Nino was that chill. Something was up.

"I don't understand," Adrien finally managed, setting aside his controller on the armrest. "Why are you being so cavalier about this?"

Nino eyed Adrien's controller with offense, like _how dare you, we aren't done battling yet._ "What do you mean?"

Adrien stared, willing his best friend to show some sort of emotion. Why wasn't he upset? How long had he known? How did he even figure it out in the first place? "Aren't you mad?" he demanded. To be honest he was starting to get a little peeved at Nino's nonchalance about the whole thing. This was a big deal!

"Mad about what? Why would I be mad?" he laughed, pointing at his Dragonite. "I won."

"No, you dummy, about me being Chat Noir!" He waved his arms dramatically, gesturing at himself to draw Nino's attention away from the pixelated stadium. "About me not telling you. About keeping secrets from you. About _me being Chat Noir._ Why are you being so cool about this? It's starting to weird me out!"

Completely thunderstruck, Nino's mouth fell open. "I'm sorry," he drawled, glasses falling askew, "did you just say in complete seriousness that you _are_ Chat Noir?"

"Yes," he hissed, very glad that they were currently home alone at Nino's apartment so that he could treat this situation with the true freakout that it called for. "Why aren't you mad at me for keeping it from you? Do you just… not care?" He added the last part quietly, letting a bit of his hurt sneak it at the last second.

"Not care?" Nino yelled, falling off the couch and tripping over the coffee table before he could right himself. " _Bitch I didn't even know!"_

"What? Wait, what."

"I should be the one saying what!" Nino shrieked, running a full circle around the coffee table to end up in front of Adrien. "How can you just drop something like that on me? What is wrong with you?"

Adrien shrank into the couch cushions, thinking back over the last five minutes with a huge flutter of doubt. Could he have misread the signs? "You asked...I thought…" He pointed weakly at Nino, then himself, then shrugged. "I thought you knew!"

"What the hell made you think I knew?"

"I thought you were using a hypothetical question to test me!"

"Adrien, ten minutes ago I asked you if you would eat me if you were a zombie!"

Adrien remembered that, of course. He had labored over his response to that question as well, also convinced it was some sort of friendship-test. Eventually he had been honest and admitted that yes, in the event that he was turned into a zombie, he would probably eat Nino.

"So you weren't… You didn't know?"

Nino had gone all silent and was staring down at him thoughtfully. "No. I didn't."

"What are you thinking right now?" Adrien worried.

"Shh. Trying to picture you with cat ears. Hey, here's a hypothetical. What would you say if I told you that I was your precious Ladybug?" He bent over cackling as Adrien went white as a sheet and fell to stammering like a drunkard. "Sorry, sorry," he laughed, "I just wanted to get back at you, since you shocked me so good. Oh my god, you're so hopeless. I'm not Ladybug, you dolt."

Adrien looked away from him, flushing harder than he ever had in his life. "I knew that."


	7. The Flower Thief

"Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery, but today you've caught me and demanded to come with me to make sure the girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft, and now I'm trying to figure out how to break it to you that were on our way to a graveyard." AU

AKA my favorite au I ever wrote for the awful-aus blog

* * *

 **The Flower Thief**

* * *

There was a reason that Adrien was standing with a freshly cut, stolen red rose in hand on the railing of Marinette's balcony at this ungodly hour of one in the morning, and in all his glory as Chat Noir to boot. There were actually several very good very logical reasons for Adrien to be here, of all the places and of all the times, doing this. But none of those reasons mattered when _Chat Noir_ couldn't admit them to Marinette, who was now standing with her arms crossed and her eyebrow quirked, having caught him literally red handed in the act of desecrating her beautiful rooftop garden.

So, unable to confess any facet of the truth lest he compromise his identity, he went into full blown Chat-mode. Cheekily placing the stem of the crimson rose between his teeth, he slunk down off the railing from which he'd been about to jump and offered Marinette an over the top bow, then rose halfway, angling the rose petals toward her as if he'd meant the flower for her all along. "Princess," he said, the greeting slightly muffled by the stem.

"Nice try," Marinette snorted, "but you're caught, kitty. I finally caught my elusive flower thief. And it'sㅡ" she gestured at him tiredly, rubbing sleep from her eyes, "ㅡyou. I can't believe it was you this whole time." Marinette advanced on him, tapping her fingers on her crossed arms.

"Oh, you…" Rising to full height, he let the flower fall out of his mouth and into his hand, cat ears pressing flat against his head in shame. He had been kidding himself from the beginning. "You knew?" He figured if he only took one every week, she'd never notice the difference. There was such a large quantity of flowers here in her pots and tins and stacked terrace shelves, of so many breeds and colors and levels of bloom that it made his head spin. It had never occurred to him in his wildest dreams that all this time Marinette had been _aware_ of the fact that she had a recurring garden thief.

"Well, yeah." She rolled her eyes and jumped up to take a seat on the railing beside him so that she was able to look down into his eyes instead of up. "I'm a gardener, Chat. I knew the second the first flower disappeared. You took the first daffodil that bloomed this year! How could I not notice?"

Adrien's mouth fell open. He was aghast at his own ignorance. "I didn't realize! I'm so sorry."

Marinette seemed not to have heard him. She was toying with a leaf on a short, fat succulent, a little smirk fighting its way onto her face. "To be honest, I didn't know what to think when I started losing a single flower every weekend, like clockwork. I got it in my head that maybe there was a stray cat hanging around the neighborhood that liked flowers. I've heard of cats eating grass before so I dunno. Seemed plausible."

"Well," Adrien chuckled, "you weren't wrong." The thorns on the flower stem slowly began to poke through his gloves as he squeezed it.

"So let's go," Marinette announced, spinning to face him and clapping her hands together beneath her chin.

Adrien, who'd been preoccupied with her very sudden movement and making sure she didn't fall backwards off the railing, flicked his ears. "What? Where?"

"You're not getting rid of me that easily," Marinette chided. "I have to make sure the girl on the receiving end of all these stolen flowers is worthy of all this thievery. And I _know_ it's not Ladybug. I want to meet whoever you picked that rose for."

A wry kind of pride momentarily eclipsed Adrien's rising panic. Marinette sure was sharp. "How do you know it isn't for Ladybug?"

Marinette shrugged frenetically, avoiding his eyes. "Oh, well I'm best friends with the girl who runs the Ladyblog, you know. I'm positive I'd have seen something about it by now if you were out there giving Ladybug flowers every week."

"Okay," Adrien admitted, "you got me there. You're right. The flowers are for someone else."

Marinette positively glowed at that news, and slipped off the railing onto her feet as she squealed in excitement. "Please, Chat, please take me along?"

Adrien's hand rested at the back of his neck. "I don't know, Mariㅡ"

"Please."

"I'm not sure youㅡ"

"Please!"

"Marinette! Listen toㅡ"

"It's my rose," Marinette interrupted yet again, and fisted her hands on her hips, squaring her shoulders and jaw at him. She may be small, but when she wanted to, Marinette could make herself a formidable presence. "I grew it from a tiny little seed, all by myself. That makes me its mother! I think I have a right to know where it's ending up, don't you?"

There was nothing Adrien could say to argue with that, because he sort of agreed with her. They were her flowers that he'd been absconding with for months, and she deserved the truth about what he was doing with them. But that didn't mean he wasn't freaking out. He was. He was freaking out; she had no idea what she was getting herself into by demanding he take her along.

But, in the end it was her decision. And she had made it, obviously.

"Alright."

Hoping Ladybug would forgive him what he was about to do, he snapped his baton to attention before offering Marinette his hand. Not a second after she had placed her hand atop his, he had whisked her off into the glittering urban night.

With her arms clenched tightly around Chat's neck and her waist cinched to his with his left arm, it was difficult for Marinette to tell where they were going. When she was flying through the city on her own whims, the entire earth and sky opened up before her like a snowglobe, every direction hers, every bird, every building, every cloud. This way of travelling was different. She could hardly see, and with half her focus spent holding onto him, she soon gave up trying to figure out where Chat was taking her. As the seconds stretched to minutes and her arms grew tired, she realized it was somewhere rather far away. Past the school, past the river… When they passed the tower, she rested her head against the interior of his shoulder, shielding her face from the biting wind.

When Chat finally lit on the ground again, he released her gently onto her own wobbly legs.

"That was a long trip," Marinette joked, stretching the life back into her arms. "Your mystery lady lives very far away!"

For some reason beyond Marinette's understanding, this turned down the corners of Chat's mouth. "Yeah," he sighed. "I suppose she does."

Marinette giggled. "She better be worth all this. Although, you have good taste I'm sure. She's probably beautiful and classy andㅡ"

"Marinette," Chat intoned softly, and the tender, sorrowful expression on his face made Marinette bite her tongue. She didn't understand. Why was he looking at her like that? Chat had never, ever looked at her like that before, not at Marinette _or_ Ladybug. Like… like someone had… "Haven't you realized where we are?"

He looked up, and Marinette's eyes automatically followed his gaze, to the sign stretched above them over a paved pathway leading into a dark grassy grove. _Cimetière de Collines Soleil._

He had brought her to a cemetery.

"Chat?" she whispered hoarsely, sure there must have been some mistake.

But he was already beneath the entrance sign, waiting for her with an air of anxiety. "I have to warn you," he said, twirling the rose in hand. "If you come in with me... " He trailed off, weighing her with his eyes, strangely faraway. "Under my mask is someone that you already know. My real name, in my real life… Marinette, you and I are friends."

She couldn't help it; Marinette gasped. _What?_

"And if you follow me any farther tonight, you'll know who I am."

"Why… Why did you bring me here, then?" Chat looked hurt at her reaction, but she hadn't meant it that way. She was blindsided, that's all.

"Maybe I want you to know," he added shyly, which was weird and wrong because the Chat she knew wasn't shy at all. What was happening? _Who was he?_ "Should I take you home?" he asked, when the silence stretched on for three moments too long.

"No," she blurted, then tripped over her own feet to catch up with him at the entrance. He had brought her here. He obviously needed her. Not Ladybug, Marinette. Whoever was under the mask knew her, and had sought her out and… was it wrong that she just had to know who it was that needed not only Ladybug but Marinette as well? "No, I'll come," she breathed, her heart racing away in her chest.

He seemed to sense her panic, because he slipped his hand into hers as they began walking and squeezed it gently. It was weird. Not because he was holding her hand but because he was doing it in a distinctly non-Chat way. The pistons in her brain fired full-speed as he spoke. "I got the idea when I visited your house once," he said, hardly daring to glance at her. "Without the mask, I mean. When I saw you fawning over your garden, something clicked."

"Oh?"

She wracked her brain for every person who'd ever visited her house.

"I'd always hated visiting her here," he admitted. "My father, he… he always has these stupidly extravagant and expensive bouquets delivered, and somehow never bothers to come himself. I used to hate seeing them here. What's the point? But when you showed me your garden, you told me about how you'd always pick the prettiest one whenever you went to visit your grandmother's grave, and I thought, well, a single thoughtfully chosen flower was infinitely better than a hundred flowers picked by a hired florist."

"I see. And I… remember that conversation," she admitted, but when Chat tensed she shook her head. "I don't remember who with, though."

He sighed, but it turned into a flustered laugh. "I don't know why I'm relieved," he said. "We're almost there, and then you'll know who I am anyway."

When at last Chat drew to a stop, Marinette was surprised by the extravagance of the monument they were standing in front of. It was among the tallest in the small cemetery: a wide, engraved base mounted with a two meter stone recreation of an angel playing a harp. In front of the statue on the grass lay a dozen professionally wrapped bouquets in varying states of decay. Marinette looked to Chat for some kind of direction or explanation, but he only released her hand, placing his on her lower back to gently usher her onward. He had brought her this far. This was the go-ahead to look.

Marinette could hear his footsteps in the grass as he followed her toward the monument, though he gave her a small berth of space as she crouched down to examine the words etched into the stone. She skimmed over the message until she got to the nameㅡand then her heart stopped.

 _Cecilia Agreste._

Oh.

Unable to look up at him, she squeezed her eyes shut, one hand still resting on the stone. "Adrien?"

"Surprise?" he laughed weakly. He reached over her to poke at his own small pile of flowers at the angel's feet. As he picked one up it broke in his hand, the brittle petals crumpling into a thousand shattered pieces. "I'm really sorry about your flowers, Marinette. I shouldn't have taken them. Now they're just…" With a frustrated growl he brushed away the rest of the dead flowers, scattering them to the wind and the grass. "I thought I was doing something good, but I was still just destroying everything. Guess that's why I'm Chat Noir, huh?"

That struck Marinette like lightning, and she shot upward, out of her shock and into action. Chatㅡ _Adrien_ ㅡstepped back, surprised by her sudden movement. Squinting her eyes at him, Marinette quickly pieced together a worrisome picture. Adrien's loneliness and loss, Chat's doubts and insecurities… all of that was on _this one person's_ shoulders. It was too much. "Don't you ever say anything like that again!" she barked, and didn't realize until Adrien grew alarmed that tears had sprung into her eyes.

"No, don't cry! What did I say?!"

"Destruction isn't always bad." Marinette had to fight through her angry tears to say it. She'd known she was going to have to have it out with Chat about this eventually, but she'd never dreamed that Adrien would be involved. That fact was muddying her well-prepared yin and yang speech. "Ladybug needs you, you know, just as much as you need her. Creation, destruction… Don't you get it? It's a balance the whole universe relies on. Those flowers would have died someday whether or not you picked them," she added in exasperation. "So stop beating yourself up all the damn time!"

She slapped her hand over her mouth after that. Crimony. What had gotten into her?

Luckily, Adrien seemed more amused than anything. "Geez," he laughed. "You sound like Ladybug." And if she wasn't mistaken, for a split second, he looked hopeful.

So she kissed him.

Adrien stiffened, but after a brief moment of shock he melted, threading one hand into her loose windswept hair and tilting her head back. This was a fast turnaround from crying, and though he wasn't sure exactly _why_ she was kissing him he sure as hell wasn't complaining. She sighed and parted her lips. The warm breath that touched his face then invited him in closer, to taste her, to bring his other hand up to the small of her back and reel her in the rest of the way.

But the second his hand touched her back she snapped out of it, twirling out of his reach at light speed. "I'm so sorry!" she squeaked, hands on her cheeks. What was she thinking? Was she insane? Not only had she just kissed Adrien but she had kissed him _next to his mother's grave._ "This is so not the timeㅡorㅡor the placeㅡ"

"Don't be sorry," Adrien soothed, relieved that she had only broken away from the kiss due to respect for the dead and not because he was a bad kisser or something. "There's nothing wrong with kissing in a cemetery."

Marinette shook her head violently, unconvinced. "But your motherㅡ"

"Was a hopeless romantic," he finished for her. "Where do you think I got it from?"

Marinette allowed herself a small chuckle. "Not your dad, I guess. He doesn't seem the type."

"Nope. All her." His laugh faded and his face grew soft again as he looked at the girl who'd just kissed him, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with affection. "I think she would have liked you, Marinette."

"Really?" Marinette could do nothing to push down the sudden wave of euphoria that rose up. Was it really possible that _Adrien_ liked her? She already knew Chat had his heart set on Ladybug but maybe, just maybe, Adrien saw something worth having in Marinette as well. "I wish I could have met her. I'm sure we would have made good friends."

"Yeah," Adrien sighed dreamily, and laid down the rose Marinette had watered and cared for at the feet of the stone angel. "You would have."


	8. Can't Stop Making Bad Decisions

This one shot's got it ALL. It also gets a little steamy so if you're not about that then I would skip this chapter. If you are about that... buckle up boiii.

Also the title of this fix comes from the Infected Mushroom song of the same title.

* * *

 **Can't Stop Making Bad Decisions**

* * *

With her usual post-akuma cheer, Ladybug watched the little purified butterfly flap away down the hall of the school, waved off her lingering fans, scraped Alya from her arm, then ran away. Chat Noir had gone down the eastern corridor when his ring started beeping, so she had a good inkling of where to find him. Sure enough, when she slipped into the dark costume closet near the backstage entrance to the school theatre, an already detransformed Adrien swore the most vanilla swear ever and knocked over a rack of accessories in surprise. When he shot upright a feather boa was still draped across one shoulder.

"Ladybug!" He caught a brief glimpse of her before she clicked the door shut behind her and locked it, throwing them into near darkness. Only a small emergency light hanging above them lit the space. "I think I just about had a heart attack. How did you know where I was?"

Marinette sauntered over to him and pulled the feather boa around his back to pull him into a quick kiss. "Because you're predictable as heck."

"Whaaat? I'm not predictable. How dare you. This is just a really good hiding place, not to mention convenient. It's smack dab in the center of the school."

"Plus you filched a key for it last year."

"I'd like to see you prove that." Adrien ducked out of the boa and guided her back until she was up against the wall, then rested one arm above her on the wall and one at his hip. "You know, these post-akuma meetups have been one of the biggest plusses about having no more secrets from each other."

The shamelessly sultry look he was giving her set her skin on fire, and dimly she heard her earrings beep their five minute warning. But she was a little too preoccupied with Adrien's breath tickling her face to concentrate on detransforming herself. Though, she wouldn't dream of giving him the satisfaction of knowing the effect his extremely _Chat_ behaviour was having on her heartrate.

"You just like all the extra flirting time it got you," she joked.

Adrien waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively-though it was mostly buildup for the incoming pun rather than actually suggesting anything. "Come on, I know you like it when I get all chatty."

Without missing a beat, Marinette crossed her arms and said, "You don't know that. I'm pretty sure I have never once said or implied that I enjoy being incessant flirted at."

"Oh please, it's obvious." He wasn't the least bit dissuaded, which made Marinette want to wipe the smug little smirk off his lips. (Maybe with her lips).

"And _why's_ that?" she ground out. (Okay, yes, definitely with her lips.)

"Because when you first found out I was Chat you screamed and kissed me." He leaned even further over her, shrinking her view of the costume closet to include only his shit-eating grin and his wide, dilated eyes. "Actually…" He squinted his eyes playfully. "Now that I think about it, you might have gone on screaming _while_ you were kissing me."

"And I'm going to scream right now if you don't stop talking."

Adrien considered this, then said: "If you're going to scream can it be while you're kissing me?" Then he gave her a quick wink to let her know he was just screwing with her before straightening and turning toward the exit.

But the next thing he knew he was being dragged backwards as Marinette screamed quietly in that scream-whisper way he never knew was even possible until he met her, and then shoved against the same wall where he so recently had pinned her. There was no time to utter a word of confusion before she crashed into him, delivering the scream-infused kiss he had so cheekily asked for. Hysterical laughter bubbled up in his throat and it quickly spread to her, dissolving them both into a laughing pile of arms and legs. He expected for her to pull away, then, conscious of the passing time and the impending notice of their absence by their friends and teachers. But she didn't, and his hands settled at her back.

"Did you ever… daydream about this?"

Adrien stopped halfway toward brushing a strand of hair from her eyes, and blinked down at her with affection. "Kissing you senseless in some random dark closet at school? _Yeah_. Oh yeah. I see you laughing, bug-you think I'm joking but I'm not."

Marinette bit her lip, an act which elevated her cuteness factor to a dangerous level. "No, I meant…" The room may have been dark but he could tell her face had gone as crimson as her spotted suit. "You know what! Nevermind. It's nothing."

"No wait, tell me! Please? Princess," he added gently, taking her face in his hands, using Chat's nickname for Marinette pre-reveal to remind her that there was nothing she could say that would surprise him. They'd already aired all the most surprising secrets.

"Okay, okay," she relented as his eyes bore into hers. "I meant: did you ever daydream about _this?_ " She gestured at him and then at herself, at their position with her leaning on his chest and him resting on the wall, less than an inch of space between them.

"Kissing you in a closet," he confirmed. "Definitely."

"Adrien, I meant kissing _Ladybug_. Like this. You, and me." Her smile grew coy. "Back before we knew, did you ever wonder about the possibility of meeting Ladybug as Adrien and getting lucky?"

The guilty squeak that came out of his mouth almost made her snort.

"Lighten up, kitty, I'm not going to be mad. I'm asking because I used to daydream about that _all the freaking time._ Meeting you as Ladybug, finally having the confidence to sweep you off your feet…"

"Oh my god, me too," Adrien groaned, and plopped his forehead on hers. "Marinette, do you realize that we could have been making out as Adrien and Ladybug the _entire time_ , even way before we swapped identities?"

"So much wasted time," she lamented.

"Agreed. Let's not waste any more." He smirked and cinched his arms around her waist, hauling her upwards into a kiss.

She giggled into it, speaking against his lips. "Dang, that was actually pretty smooth. I think you leveled up."

Shivers traveled down his spine from the point where Marinette was playing with his hair near the base of his neck. His back slid just a bit farther down the wall and he lifted her just a bit farther onto him, hands sliding from her back to her thighs, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist.

"Leveled up from what to what?"

The _extremely_ new position she now found herself in was one that might normally have had Marinette's heart hammering so hard she'd need a defibrillator. But something about the spots helped her keep cool and collected in the face of a total physical meltdown. She curled one arm behind his neck and rested the other on his chest where she toyed with his shirt collar. "From charming to debonair, of course."

 _Ladybug just called me debonair. Help._ His knees weakened, sending him another inch down the wall. When she brought her lips to his, he slid all the way down.

To her credit Marinette went on kissing him, unphased by the sudden collapse of her boyfriend, shifting even farther onto his lap until her own knees were pressed to the wall near his hips. Every little bit of attention she gave to his lips had him groaning with approval, which she took as permission and encouragement. Soon they were both robbed of air as they traded turns ravishing each other, back and forth with heated breath, pecking then licking then delving then biting then panting for breath and starting again. After a minute of this, Marinette's earrings beeped once more. Three minutes left. Adrien whined, biting a little harder on her lower lip than he meant to. He'd been so thoroughly lost in his old fantasy come to life that he'd almost forgotten it was nearly over.

Marinette _,_ who was very lost herself, whimpered at the love bite and twitched her hips involuntarily into his. At which point she choked and froze. Because she'd just brushed up against his Very Obvious Boner.

For the first time ever.

 _With the most intimate part of her body._

And in the .5 seconds she was allotted to process that milestone, Adrien performed about three chalkboards worth of calculations inside his head to figure out exactly what they had time left to accomplish before her transformation wore off. The answer was a whopping Lot of Stuff.

 _Ha, and they said you wouldn't need math in real life!_

Adrien made a sound suspiciously like a purr and lunged forward, sweeping her off her knees and onto her back on the carpeted floor, poising himself above her with a catlike gleam in his eye before closing the distance once more. Marinette squirmed under him, and her skin-tight suit ensured that he felt every contour of her lovely body rubbing against his own as she did so. He moved to her jawline to pepper it with love and hissed her name in her ear when she boldly stuck her hands in his back pockets and rocked his hips down into hers. She responded in kind, whispering his name into his hair while he teased the neckline of her suit, consciously fighting the urge to grind himself against her rough and hard.

...Which was rather difficult, since her hands in his pockets seemed to be trying to goad him into doing just that.

"You're torturing me on purpose," he accused, returning to her lips and tasting them with unconcealed desire.

Marinette smirked in an exceedingly Ladybug manner, and said, "Well, I'm not torturing you on accident."

Despite himself, despite their position and his raging hard-on, Adrien wrinkled his nose and busted a gut laughing. He only stopped when Marinette grew frantic below him.

"Shhh!" she was pleading.

"What? Sorry, was I t-?" Marinette clapped a hand over his mouth, gesturing behind her at the locked door that led out into the hall. And Adrien now heard what she had been hearing: the unmistakable sound of keys being put to use.

A great variety of thoughts occurred to them in that split second of terror.

First and foremost: Ladybug and Adrien and Agreste were about to be caught making out in a dark closet. This was a big fuck-no for a plethora of reasons, including but not limited to: Marinette and Adrien were dating. In the eyes of the beholder, Adrien would be _cheating_. Or on an even scarier vein of thought, the beholder may connect the dots and learn Ladybug's identity. The craftier of the bunch might even deduce that he was Chat Noir. So yeah, Ladybug and Adrien getting caught locking lips was like seventeen different kinds of fuck-no.

They came to this simultaneous panicked conclusion as the person with the keys found the one they were looking for and inserted it into the lock. Still propped up on his arms above her, Adrien met his girlfriend's wide eyes. He had two options here and less than one second to pick between them.

One, he could let himself get caught kissing Ladybug as Adrien. Fuck. That. Everyone would think he was cheating on Marinette, and to top it off he'd probably be shipped off to Timbuktu by his father just to save face after the inevitable media hayday. Either that, or everyone would connect the dots and figure out one or both of their identities. Shudder.

Two, he could transform, which was literally the only thing he had time to do, and get caught kissing Ladybug as Chat Noir instead. Not ideal. So far they'd managed to keep the more intimate developments of their relationship from the public eye, wary of Hawkmoth and his tendency to take advantage of their emotional attachments to each other. Not to mention the insatiable journalists (more like the insatiable Alya) that would come clamoring for the details of their romance. Getting caught kissing would mean sacrificing this privacy.

In the end, which situation was preferable? Now _that_ question was easy for him to answer.

But underneath him, Marinette's brain was hauling ass in fourth gear in the opposite direction.

One, she could do nothing and let them be caught as is; Lady and Adrien, getting hot and heavy in a closet. Yeah no thank you. Ladybug, a powerhouse role model for women everywhere, would be transformed into a sex symbol overnight. Absolutely not happening. Not in this lifetime, anyway. Either that, or someone could connect the dots and either realize she was Marinette or that Adrien was Chat. Talk about nightmare.

Two, she could transform, which was literally the only thing she had time to do, and get caught kissing Adrien as Marinette instead. Not ideal. Their civilian relationship was anything but secret, but in the interest of staying out of magazine articles and the critical eye of Gabriel Agreste, they had always saved the majority of their physical affections for closed doors. Getting caught in a compromising position like this would be both embarrassing and unwelcome.

In the end, which situation was preferable? Now _that_ question was easy for her to answer.

"Transforme-moi!" they whispered in tandem as the knob began to turn.

Then each gaped at the other in confusion and shock as Chat replaced Adrien and Marinette replaced Ladybug. Somehow, this fourth and completely unaccounted-for option was the worst of them all.

"Change back!" Chat and Marinette scream-whispered at each other, but it was far too late.

The door had begun to open.

* * *

SOMEONE HELP THESE UNHELPABLE LOSERS. AHHH

I really think Adrien would prefer to be caught in a compromising situation as Chat because of his father, and Marinette would prefer it to happen as Marinette because of what Ladybug represents to her fans. When I thought about that last scene I just couldn't help writing this. Post reveal relationship would be hilariously complicated as they tried to navigate their four different personas in public without screwing up. Too funny.


	9. Breathless

Too many calm "I've been meaning to tell you for awhile now" reveals. Not enough frantic "we're about to die" reveals. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

* * *

 **Breathless**

* * *

The thing about the superhero business was that everything could be going your way, with victory within reach, only for everything to blow up in your face in the span of a single breath. Ladybug had already used her lucky charm (Nerf brand supersoaker) to diffuse the flare gun the akuma had been using to terrorize everyone on the bridge. As a result the weapon was drenched, rendering it unfireable and useless. So even though she was minutes away from her rapid detransformation, things were going swimmingly because now Chat was able to get within five feet of the akuma, whereas before the flares had kept him dancing out of harm's way. With his lovely lady's help, he had this in the bag.

"I need to duck out," Ladybug hissed in his ear from behind. "It'll just be a second, I have to recharge."

Chat answered her with a chivalrous bow and promptly yanked open the back door on the driver's side of an abandoned sports car. The windows were heavily tinted, which offered the perfect cover for a lady one minute from revealing her secret and stuck out in the middle of a bridge over the Seine. "Go on. I'll cover you."

She flicked at his bell as she rushed into the backseat, slamming the door shut behind her. He peered at his own reflection on the dark window for a moment, making sure none of the still-fleeing passersby would be able to see inside and compromise his lady's secret identity. Satisfied, he activated his cataclysm. Bolts of energy shot down his arm in preparation for the attack, setting his hairs on end inside his suit and little shocks of black lightning ablaze at his fingertips. It was always harder to destroy the butterflies that took nest in heartier belongings. Things like pencils and hats were easy to break. This one being a flare gun, he would need to do more than just step on it to free the nasty little messenger from within. Enter: cataclysm.

He was about to return to the firefight when suddenly Ladybug threw the car door open again. "Chat, look out!"

Wheeling around, he saw that the akuma had gotten the jump on him while he'd been distracted by Ladybug. Reacting instantly to the threat, he raised his charged hand, ready to lunge for the flare gun and put an end to all this. But the akuma had a split second advantage, and as Chat raised his hand the akuma raised his leg, connecting his foot squarely with Chat's chest and sending him flying into the backseat of the car, onto Ladybug, tumbling them both into the far side of the car. Then the akuma slammed the door on them.

Chat swore loudly _(Ladybug needs to detransform and I can't be in here!)_ and dove for the door handle with both hands.

That was a grave mistake.

The second he thoughtlessly touched it, the electrical charge gathered in his right hand shot into the car door, singing the lock mechanism to a crisp and and spreading throughout the car's computer at light speed, briefly lighting up all the interior/exterior lights and the car alarm and the windshield wipers, before flickering out and leaving the car dead.

"Chat!" Ladybug yelled.

"I'm _so sorry_ -"

"No, look!"

He looked. Beyond the window the akuma was standing with a devilish grin spreading across his face. They barely had time to decide they didn't like that look and test the door handles once again (definitely busted) before the akuma picked the car up over his head and hurled it off the bridge.

A few seconds of freefall. They tumbled around the backseat as the car spun through the air until Chat managed to pin Ladybug between himself and the soft seat cushion.

They hit the water, and it didn't matter that Chat had tried to protect her because they were both thrown bodily into the righthand door as the car plunged underwater, then back again as it bobbed up, unable to immediately sink. They were both in a fair amount of pain, regardless of their protective costumes, but they immediately threw themselves into escape mode. Water rose past the windows and began to seep in at their feet from some unknown location. It was day above the waterline, but everything below was cast in eternal night.

"Windows," Ladybug ordered, and she crawled to the front to check those while Chat checked the back ones again. Dead. "Locks?" They checked; dead. They tried kicking the windows out, but the water pressure prevented them from doing so. They were now totally underwater and the interior of the car was thrown into a foreboding shimmery darkness that neither would admit spoke of death. The skeleton of the car creaked ominously around them as it sank toward the bottom of the Seine. Giving up on the doors and windows, Ladybug crawled back into the backseat with Chat. If they were going to die here, they weren't doing it alone.

"Forgive me?" she asked quietly, and if she had given him time to answer he would have said ' _Forgive_ you _? I'm the one who screwed up!'_ But she didn't give him time before going on to say, "Tikki, detransform me."

The flash of pinkish golden light lit his face, carving it with angles of shock, but she didn't see because she couldn't look at him. Not when she'd so adamantly insisted they never share identities only to do so now because she was too scared to die-because she loved him too much to let him die just to preserve her own stupid principles. "Tikki," she pleaded when the little kwami swirled to life in the darkness. "We're in serious trouble. Eat this." The water was up to their calves now, leaving about two thirds of their air left. Two thirds of their chance at life.

On the seat beside her, Chat watched with dissociated awe as Marinette reached into her bra and pulled out a dime-sized ziploc bag, then extracted a little pill from it to shove into Tikki's mouth. The kwami shuddered but obediently started to chew it. It was dark now, but the flash of light when he'd seen her detransform had been more than enough for him to identify her.

"Vitamins," Marinette explained when she finally met Chat's eyes. In the gathering darkness, his gleaming green irises would soon be the only source of light in the entire car. Already the water outside the windows was changing from hazy green to black. "For emergencies. You think this qualifies?"

The saddest of smiles crossed Chat's face. He wished _he'd_ thought of something like that. "Yeah," he said. "I think so, Mari."

The unexpected usage of the familiar nickname cause her heart to trip over its next beat. Did Chat _know_ her? "Our only chance now is another lucky charm," she went on, knowing that Chat knew this as well as she, but unwilling to let silence fill their last moments together, should her hail mary fail. "How are you doing Tikki?"

"I'm chewing as fast as I can," Tikki mumbled through a mouthful of chalky paste. "It's gonna take a more than a minute for the vitamins to hit my system, Marinette. How long do we have?"

"Not that long," Marinette sighed.

"Marinette?" She glanced up when he called her name. The icy water splashed across their laps now, slanted and wrong as the car tipped backwards on its achingly slow way down to the bottom of the shallow channel, gravity pressing them into the back of the seat. He held his arms out. She moved into them gladly. "Under any other circumstances I would have been delighted to find out it was you," he whispered into her hair, choking on the words. "But now... I'll be losing you both."

 _He does know me,_ she realized. "Oh, chaton," she sighed with passion, shamelessly toying with the bell on his collar the way she'd always wanted to. "My dear Chat Noir. If it comes to that, then I'm afraid you won't have very much time to miss me."

"Adrien," he corrected.

Marinette stilled on his chest, then rose to meet his eyes. The only thing left for him to see in the darkness was the green pinpoints in her eyes where his reflected back. He wasn't afraid to die, but he also wasn't about to walk into the jaws of death without her knowing who he was. Water sloshed between them, rising to their shoulders. He moved his hands from her back to her face, answering her silent onslaught of questions with a tender brush of his thumb across her cheek. _Yes, that Adrien._ He wasn't quite sure whether her face was wet with river water or with tears.

(It was both.)

"You're wrong," he said gently. "I miss you already, lovebug."

A desperate sob shook her then and Marinette and drooped forward, her forehead coming into contact with his chin. "I miss you already too," she cried.

The water was now so high that they were now floating up off the seat, and had to follow the pocket of air leading up toward the front windshield. The car groaned and tilted again. They swam forward to seek out the last bit of air in the front of the car, and Adrien pulled Marinette to him again, resting his back on the slanted dashboard.

Tikki buzzed around Marinette's head, a little more full of life than she was a minute ago. "Don't despair," she urged them. "I'm almost recharged. You'll make it." Her words fell on deaf ears. The two were lost in their bubble, clinging to each other like life itself depended on it. Maybe it did. She alit on Marinette's shoulder, peering up into Adrien's luminous eyes. "And if you don't… you'll see each other again," she consoled them. "Next time around."

This caught Adrien's attention. "Hear that, bug?" he prodded, nudging her head with his. "We get another chance."

"Really?" Marinette blinked away her last tear, searching Tikki's face for the truth. Tikki had never before mentioned anything about reincarnation, or its significance regarding the miraculous holders.

"Really," Tikki confirmed.

"Then… I'm not afraid," Marinette decided, looking back up into Adrien's eyes. "If you'll be there on the other side then I'm not afraid."

The water splashed up past their noses and they had to angle their faces toward the air pocket.

"I'll find you there," Adrien told her. "Wait for me, okay?"

"Always," she said, and below the waterline she took his hand. Together they took a final breath and sank underwater.

With a terrifying jolt Adrien realized he hadn't yet told her he loved her. A surge of longing so deep it threatened to shake him apart at the seams drove him to press forward in the cold dark, finding her lips with his. A tiny stream of bubbles escaped her mouth and he almost died right then and there. He'd caused her to part with some of her precious air. But she didn't seem to notice as she desperately kissed him back, locking her arms around his neck in a silent and chilling embrace. A kiss to end all kisses.

Fear shot through him when she pulled away, fear that she was passing out for good. _Please, not yet, I'm not ready to let you go._ But he was pleasantly surprised to see a flash of red light the inside of the car like fireworks, and to see Ladybug replace Marinette before the light faded away. The light returned almost as quickly as it went when she immediately activated her lucky charm. Her yoyo fizzled and popped in the water between them, yet nothing happened. Nothing appeared. Marinette met his eyes with terror before the lucky light faded, and it was in that moment that they finally accepted the fact that they were going to die.

But as Marinette threw herself at him once again, he felt it.

The familiar surge of energy down his arm.

 _What the-?_ He looked over her shoulder and saw that his hand was indeed lighting up with the telltale crackling energy that always preceded the powers of destruction. _He'd been given another cataclysm._

He cinched his other arm around her waist then so hard she squeaked out her last bubble of air, but it was okay because his hand was on the ceiling of the car, disintegrating it. Shards of rusted metal shot out into the river and Adrien kicked off the dashboard with all his might, dragging Marinette along with him as he swam frantically for the surface, his lungs screaming for breath and his vision spotty with oxygen deprivation. It was almost another ten seconds before they broke the surface. In the rolling waves they gasped for air, filling their lungs with the sweet, sweet oxygen they thought they had parted with forever. Treading water and clinging to each other with unapologetic abandon, they ignored the cheering of the crowd gathered on the bridge and the thrum of helicopters above them and the buzz of motorboats in the distance as they soaked in the blinding sun. The bulldozer sensation of simply being alive welled up between them like a heartbeat.

"What happened?" Marinette finally gasped when she had finished choking out water. "I thought it didn't work?"

Adrien laughed, almost manically, and planted a sloppy kiss on her wet forehead. "It seems your lucky charm this time was me."

"Cataclysm?" she realized faintly.

"I love you so much," he said all in one breath. "I realized I never told you, when we went underwater, and I just need you to know-regardless of what we are or who we are or what happens, I just, I _can't go through again without you knowing that I_ -" He was cut off with a muffled word when she kissed him again, this time in full view of the civilians on the bridge and the news copters above.

"I love you too," she breathed when she finally pulled away.

When the search boat picked them up a few minutes later, they were offered blankets and hot tea while an officer debriefed them on the developments with the akuma since their disappearance. The officer left them alone, after that, feeling a weight in the air that he couldn't quite place and sensing that they needed a minute of peace before returning to the battle ashore. Marinette was relieved at this development and, despite the crew nearby and their beeping miraculous stones, allowed her temple to come to a rest on Adrien's shoulder.

"Hey, princess?"

The term of endearment warmed her more than the blanket around her shoulders ever would. "Yes, chaton?" He paused then, which drove her to look up at him; only to see a very mischievous look in his eye that she did not like at all. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," he hummed, radiating warmth and contentedness. "It's just… you leave me breathless, y'know?"

And this time, instead of flicking his nose for the joke, she kissed it.

* * *

...

I legit started crying at "I miss you already." I was having an emotional day when I wrote this and I straight up cried when I got to that part. Fuck me in half dude.

 **PSA:** If you frequently drive near water you should keep a window breaking tool (they sell ones specifically for this purpose) within reach of the front seat at all times! If you find yourself in this position and do not have such a tool, you are supposed to wait for the water to completely fill the interior of the car, and THEN kick out the windows. The water pressure from outside the window will prevent you from doing this until the pressure is equalized (i.e. when the water fills the car). So take a deep breath at the last possible moment and kick with both legs with all your might. I know, it's scary. I live in a place with frequent flash flooding where this is a very real and immediate danger and therefore we all grew up learning this. So it always scares me when other people don't know what to do in this situation. Lady and Chat need to take a water safety class. smh.

 **Up next:** A waaay more lighthearted companion piece where Alya liveblogs the whole thing on the Ladyblog. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	10. Akuma Liveblog 62: The Firecracker

**Akuma Liveblog #62: The Firecracker** (edit: aka the day the ship sailed)

(A companion piece to the previous one-shot, Breathless, wherein Alya liveblogs the whole event.

This story is a fictional thread on a fictional social media platform. It's therefore filled with many special characters that ffnet doesn't allow, which so thoroughly messed up the integrity of the story that I have decided only to post in on ao3 (which doesn't disallow these characters.) I'm posting this here so that those of you who follow this story here don't miss out on the chapter.

I can't post a direct link to it here because of the ffnet site rules, but:

 **You can find this one-shot collection under the same pen name and same collection title over on ao3**. **The missing story is chapter 10 there.**

Sorry about the inconvenience! Enjoy the mock liveblog!

~speaks


	11. Guard Dog

I know the glass ceiling pun probably doesn't cross over into French but just let me have this one okay? 3

* * *

 **Guard Dog**

* * *

"That's what you get for ducking instead of headbutting," Marinette giggled as she pressed some ice borrowed from Mylene's cooler to the gnarly bruise on Nathaniel's forehead. After Kim had punted the ball straight at him with a battle cry of " _Nathaniel, for the win!"_ he had panicked and ducked. Alya's knee had then promptly made friends with his face. "Seriously," Marinette went on, stepping into her most motherly tone, "who taught you to play football anyway?"

Nathaniel had to laugh at that. "No one? I've never played."

"Oh, uh… yikes. Rough first game."

At that point Max called half time, and the group of friends broke from the stretch of grass between the makeshift goal posts they'd crafted with secondhand fishnets and trash cans. Alix and Kim stayed out kicking the ball around while everyone else fanned out to the drinking fountains and bathrooms, and some toward the picnic table under the ramada where Marinette was treating Nathaniel's injury.

As their friends filled the space under the ramada with laughter and jokes, Marinette gave Nathaniel a quick smile and then passed off the ice to him, moving from her crouch in front of him to join him instead on the concrete bench. He waited for her to glance back at him a few moments later before returning the smile with one of his own, albeit shyer.

Marinette was just glad they were on speaking terms again. Maybe it was by small degrees, but every time they spoke she could sense their friendship healing.

But Adrien, who had just entered the ramada with Nino in search of his water bottle, was not privy to the private musings of Marinette's mind. What he saw was Nathaniel sitting a little too close to Marinette for his liking and smiling a bit too much in her direction.

"Hey guys," he grinned, feigning nonchalance with all the ease of a trained professional as he plopped himself into the tight space between Nathaniel and Marinette on the bench. The tentative smile on Nathaniel's face evaporated. "So was it bad?" he wondered, peering at the melting ice cubes in the boy's hand.

"Could have been worse," Nathaniel mumbled.

"True," Marinette agreed. "Alya has the thigh muscles of an olympic runner, so it really could have."

Nathaniel quietly excused himself from the table as Max attempted to get everyone back out on the field for the third quarter.

"Start without me," Adrien called out through cupped hands. "I'm gonna run to refill my water bottle."

Marinette watched Nathaniel slump out onto the field, then screwed up her face at Adrien's retreating back. Love of her life or not, something had to be done. "Me too!" Marinette yelled, then ran to catch up with Adrien as he crossed the park to the drinking fountain. "Hey, wait up!" she breathed, her heart beating like a war drum in her throat as she steeled herself for what she was about to do. "Can I talk to you about something?"

Adrien paused with a benign, puzzled look on his face, setting his empty bottle down on the back of the fountain. He was thrown off by the seriousness of her expression, which was totally at odds with the light, carefree afternoon they had all been enjoying since Alix invited them out to play football. "Of course. What's up?"

For a couple of seconds Marinette fretted, trying to decide how best to phrase what she needed to say. In the end she just blurted it out. "Could you maybe lay off Nathaniel?" She slapped a hand over her mouth after that, shocked by her own choice of words, but then peeled it away to add an intense, "Please?"

 _Lay off?_ Adrien's jaw flapped. "What do you mean? What did I do?" Did he black out and punch the guy without realizing? He'd definitely imagined it once or twice.

"I'm sorry," Marinette relented, "that didn't come out right. You didn't say anything wrong, it's just… Ever since the Evillistrator incident you've…" She petered out, gesturing her hands at him in a vague swooping motion.

Adrien was nonplussed. He honestly didn't know what she was getting at. In light of certain _events_ , he thought he'd shown remarkable restraint in not allowing Chat's knowledge of what has transpired between Mari and the akumatized Nathaniel to bleed over into the Adrien side of things. Where had he slipped up? What did he say?

A little of Marinette's ire melted away into the sunny afternoon as she drank in his complete confusion. Leaning against the fountain, she looked up at him with her arms folded loosely across her t-shirt. "You really have no idea what I'm talking about?"

"Sorry, no." It was apparent that he had stepped over the line between Chat and Adrien somehow, but he still needed to hear how. "Help me out, Mari."

Marinette sighed, the use of the pet name tickling her the way it always did. Loads of people called her that. Yet only when Adrien said it did her knees buckle.

"Ever since the Evillistrator incident last month you've been really… distrusting of Nathaniel."

That news made Adrien blanch. Was it that obvious?

Marinette went on, missing the stricken look on Adrien's face. "Every time he tries to talk to me, you wedge yourself between us. Every time he so much as looks at me you step in front of me."

Remembering the first time it had happened, Marinette felt her cheeks heating up. Nathaniel had come to her the day after the incident with an apology on his lips, and Adrien had slammed his locker shut, edging around Marinette until she was behind his shoulder. Even after the boy had apologized, Adrien hadn't budged an inch, broad shoulders squared and hands balled into casual fists as he stared their classmate down with a cold, calculative look in his eyes.

For her part, Marinette was too surprised by Adrien's reaction to do anything but stand there. There were many words she could use to describe Adrien Agreste. Mostly, before that day, those words would have included but not been limited to dreamy, genuine, adorable, caring, generous… Many, many words.

But you probably wouldn't have found the word intimidating in that word bank, or protective, or _scary_.

Needless to say, Marinette had updated her internal bio on him.

But now, as Adrien floundered for something to say about her accusation, Marinette had to wonder how someone so pure and gentle could possibly be the same person that refused to let Nathaniel within three feet of her.

"I don't know what to say," he finally admitted, which was the complete truth. Hastily he reviewed all his interactions with Nathaniel over the last month. Had he really been so forward about it?! "I didn't realize I was doing that at all."

"It's alright," Marinette soothed. "I mean, wait, sorry, no it's not," she changed her mind. "Sorry, it's not okay." Damn his beautiful innocent face, she needed to get this out but he was making it so difficult! "I'm not mad," she assured him. "But it's been really hard getting Nathaniel back out of his shell after that whole debacle, and every time you do that it pretty much deletes all my progress with him. It's been so awkward," she confessed. "He _definitely_ doesn't have a crush on me now, after the way I embarrassed him. We're barely even friends anymore. And you acting like my guard dog-" (Adrien bit back a laugh at her misfired metaphor) "-is just, not, helping." She finished on an embarrassed whisper, pressing her hands together in a prayer-like position in front of her lips, silently begging him to understand and not be upset.

It was like he could read her mind. "I understand, Marinette." His hand shot to the back of his neck as he went into damage control mode. "Honestly, I do, and I'm really sorry. It's just, I was so taken aback by what he was willing to do to get you to date him, you know? It rubbed me the wrong way. I try to forget about things people do when they're under Hawkmoth's influence, but I guess this one just stuck with me. Anyway, I had no idea I was doing that to him. I'll stop."

"Thank you," she sighed with relief, freshly reeling over the fact that Adrien was so bothered by this particular akuma. Whew. That went better than expected! Now, just one more thing… "Also," she went on, channeling Ladybug with all her might, "I need you to know that I don't need protecting, from Nathaniel or anyone."

She offered him the most charming, most confident, most Ladybug smile in her arsenal. Because really, if there was one thing that bothered her more than Nathaniel still struggling with guilt, it was Adrien seeing her as some sort of damsel in distress.

There was silence, punctuated only by the chirping of birds as Adrien processed Marinette's bold statement. Oh boy, he had really blurred the line this time.

Because hadn't he daydreamed about Marinette for weeks after the Evillistrator? Hadn't he reminisced about saving her, savoring the way she had gushed over him, cherished every loaded, charming glance they had shared? He had gone to sleep every night for two weeks with her on his mind, and all the tantalizing possibilities that arose when a dashing superhero met a charming civilian. It was the showboater inside him, clamoring for more of… whatever that weird magical connection was that had sprung up between them when they worked together that night. What could be say? He loved being a hero, and with Marinette, he had never loved it more. He had saved her; and maybe, just maybe, he was dying to save her again.

Or maybe more accurately, he was dying to make sure that she would never need saving again. Was that a different story?

Regardless, he obviously allowed these very _Chat_ feelings to leak into the world of Adrien, and that was something he couldn't abide. Of course Marinette didn't know he was Chat and didn't know he had been there for that whole creepy ordeal, so she wouldn't know why he reacted so vehemently to Nathaniel's proximity to her.

"Of course," he nodded. "I wouldn't want you to think that _I think_ you can't take care of yourself."

"I know." Marinette tapped her fingers on her arm, loose hairs from her bun slipping into her eyes. She blew at them. "I know you mean well. I just want you to know that I'm fine. Really," she pressed. "I can take care of myself, Adrien. If Nath was in any way a threat to me, which he's not, by the way, then I wouldn't hang around him. Or I'd kick his ass. I know self-defense. Plus, I bet you didn't know this, 'cause I didn't really tell anyone the whole story, but I actually saved Chat Noir's ass that night."

Aaand Adrien's eyebrows shot into orbit.

"Yeah," she snickered, "I know. That silly cat would have been stuck forever if I hadn't helped him lift the glass ceiling off our heads." Belatedly she recognized her choice of words as hilarious. Chat would have busted a gut at the unintentional pun and she was so glad ( _and wrong_ ) that he hadn't witnessed such filth coming out of her classy mouth. "Ironic, no?"

Too aghast at this development to find any humor in her wordplay, Adrien waved away Max, who he could see coming over to check on them and bring them back into the game. This was more important. Max gestured at him in exasperation, but turned back nonetheless. "Marinette," Adrien began, that glass ceiling pun still ringing in his ears, unsure how he could have screwed up this badly. "I haven't been acting this way because I think you're weak, and I _especially_ haven't been acting this way because you're a girl." He shoved his hands in his pockets. This was going to be a little embarrassing, but he absolutely could not have her thinking that. "It's not because you're a girl, Mari, it's because I care about you. That's not the same thing."

Marinette blinked up at him, totally dumbfounded. "Oh, Adrien," she sighed, and before she could talk herself out of it she stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. Then she backed away, her confidence receding back to the bottom of her shoes, unable to look him in the eye and judge his reaction. "I care about you too."

With that she ran off to rejoin the game, leaving Adrien to press his hand to his cheek and try to calm his frantically beating heart.


	12. Ma Chérie

In a scenario where Adrien has openly rejected Marinette for Ladybug and Ladybug has likewise openly rejected Chat Noir for Adrien, and then the reveal comes a long time later (giving Adrien time to develop confusing feelings for Mari and Ladybug to do likewise with Chat). Cue an EXTREMELY bittersweet reveal.

I just REALLY wanted to write an angsty love letter. I'm feeling romantic and evil today ok sue me.

* * *

 **Ma Chérie**

* * *

Ma chérie,

I never knew how many things there were to love until I met you. _(Though of course I didn't realize until yesterday that I met you twice)_.

Take, for instance:

The way you kick your legs when you sit on the edge of a building, toying with the idea of jumping off. _(The way you tap your leg incessantly under your desk as you write without realizing you're jostling the chair in front of you.)_ The way you're never afraid to tell me when to shut up. _(The way you're so afraid I'll stop talking to you that you can barely speak.)_ The spark of a sudden solution to a complex problem when it strikes you all at once, such a raw and powerful force that I can see it breaking over you like a wave. _(The spark of artistic inspiration as it wells up from some beautiful place inside you that I want desperately to visit, flinting into fire.)_ That you know you're beautiful and yet still manage to blush whenever I remind you. _(That your shy, gentle nature precludes the idea that you could be as beautiful as I always insist.)_ The way you make me feel when we're alone. _(The way you make me feel like I'm not alone.)_

The way you think you don't love me _. (The way you think you do.)_

I know. I know that you must be thinking what I'm thinking. Must be trying to force all the puzzle pieces into a coherent picture, and like me, you're probably coming up short a few pieces. I know I'm sure as hell coming up short here.

I told you I loved you, but since I didn't know who you were under that mask you told me that I couldn't possibly love you with the intensity I described. _(You thought you loved me, but since you didn't know that my carefully structured life was a disguise in its own right, I never believed that you did.)_ And you said it with such conviction that for awhile you almost had me fooled. Almost made me believe I could never truly love you unless I saw every angle of you that there was to see-until I'd been introduced to every last corner you carved in your heart when you drew that dotted line between you and _yourself._

Dotted. Haha...

 _(Then, oh and then... then you made me believe it was possible to fall in love twice.)_

Now that I know the truth, it's obvious that neither of us were ever in love with _either_ of us. At least, not really.

On this side of the truth, it's amazing how fully I can see what we were, how we failed, how we thrived. The enormity of what we were doing. The triviality of it. This whole time when we were falling in love it was with little pieces of each other. Like the individual leaves of an autumn tree, these moments we've shared together were always from the same tree, yet never to fall all at once.

From the start, what I thought were sunrays were only glimpses in the dark, thin rays of ultraviolet flashing out from the deep in the blackest of ocean trenches. I saw the light and I wanted what I saw. I didn't know what it was; never knew what it meant or where it came from or what it would cost me to capture it. But I wanted it badly. I wanted you. _(Then I wanted you too, and wasn't that just the icing on the cake?)_

Same as the fish in the deep, when I followed the light it was to my downfall.

So yes, maybe you were right all along, my lady, when you shot down my declaration of love not by saying you didn't love me back but by denying the existence of my love in the first place. It stung, then, and I wanted to hate you for it. But I couldn't, and I know know you were were onto something. Maybe when I said I loved you I was talking about a mere piece of you. _(And maybe when I thought I'd fallen in love with someone new, it was only with another piece.)_ But in the end what does it matter? Even now with the biggest secret out in the open, there are still more pieces left of you that I've yet to meet. Old memories you've yet to divulge, secret hobbies you've yet to trust me with, obscure interests you've yet to unveil, hidden fears you're too scared to share... There will _always_ be pieces of you I've yet to meet. It's the human condition. We compartmentalize. We live in pieces. For some of us, like you and I, this fractured state of being is vital to our survival. Hell, I know it's the only way that I survive.

If that's the case, if the both of us are puzzles and all this time we've been gluing each other together... If that's the case, my lady _(my princess)_ then when will it be enough? At what point do the pieces stop looking like pieces and start looking like a person? Are you complete yet? Have I seen enough of your heart yet to convince you that I love you? Is my love real now that I know how the pieces connect?

 _(There will always be pieces of me you've yet to meet too, princess. But if you like, I could start introducing you to some of them.)_

I've told you before and you've never believed me, but I need you to believe, now. Believe that I love you.

 _(Because then, and only then, could I believe that you love me back.)_

~Forever yours.

* * *

 _..._

In case you didn't follow the abstract style, the plain text is Adrien addressing Ladybug and the parenthetical italics are for when he switches to addressing Marinette. He's not dumb enough to use both those names in the same written letter, but he knows Marinette is smart enough to catch his meaning. Poor Adrien, such a hopeless sap. Ever since that canon love poem I've been nursing a headcanon that he writes a lot or really sappy and purple poetic prose. Adrien reminds me a LOT of myself and for me, whenever I have a huge confrontation to have with my SO it's so much easier for me (as a writer) to write down everything I have to say, to make sure it all gets said. Adrien would TOTALLY do this.


	13. Untitled

Very slight AU, in that I made their powers cooler. B)

Edit:

Okay so, there was a VERY specific kind of song in my head when I wrote this, but I couldn't for the life of me find one that fit. Then a very nice very awesome reader on Ao3 (clandestincinnamon) pointed me towards this song on youtube: Summer Hearts by DavidRussel323. And let me squeal for a second. Because not only is this song PERFECT. BUT IT GAVE ME A FLASHBACK TO SOMETHING (see author's note at the end) AND I REMEMBERED WHAT SONG I WAS THINKING OF?

I'm seriously so stupid, how did I not realize I was thinking of THAT SONG (SEE END NOTE AFTER READING). ANYWAY.

The piano song I was thinking of was: To Zanarkand from the piano collection of Final Fantasy X.

I know neither of these songs are exactly what I describe in the story, but know that these are both EXACTLY what I was picture. So if you want, listen to them while reading and imagine that the song Adrien plays is somewhere in the middle.

* * *

 **Untitled**

* * *

While Chat Noir comforted the recently-rescued akuma and explained what had happened to them, Marinette danced around the evacuated concert hall, magic dripping from her fingers as she splashed it around. Light billowed in her wake and every reflective surface glistened, from the metal strips running along the carpeted aisle to the number plates embedded in each chair to the chandeliers hanging above. The rows repaired themselves and the burn marks vanished from the carpet. Chat was escorting the shaken pianist from the hall by the time she got to the stage. The waxed hardwood floor was ripped up in great stretches and it took a little while for her to finesse it back into its original smooth state.

"Poor guy," Chat Noir lamented as he joined her onstage near the end of her ritual. They were alone now in the vaulted concert hall, and his soft voice echoed strangely in the space around them. "One sour note and his biggest night is ruined. Can you imagine?"

"I can," Marinette sighed. Her imagination was perhaps too vivid for someone in her occupation. It was impossible for her not to identify and sympathize with each and every victim. She hesitated at the grand piano itselfㅡthe last thing left to repairㅡfeeling the weight of the pianist's heartbreak like it was her own.

"Hey, you've got enough magic left, right?" Chat Noir prompted when she'd been staring silently at the half-crushed piano for a little too long. "Don't push yourself too hard. That was a lot of damage you just fixed. We can always come back and finish up later."

"No, no," she assured him haughtily, "I haven't run out yet." If she'd run out of magic she'd have gone sprinting out of here already to protect her identity from him. He knew that.

To prove her point she waved a hand over the collapsed instrument, righting its broken legs first and prompting the rest to follow. Chat Noir leaned in close, watching the interior strings with rapt attention and awe as they reattached and restrung themselves. He looked like a regular old cat, the way his pupils dilated. She'd gotten over the shock-factor of her incredible powers within a week of receiving them. Chat, however... Two years later he was _still_ watching her work with the eyes of an enraptured child. She couldn't lie to herself; it was somewhat endearing.

Not that she'd ever tell him that.

When she was finished with the piano, Chat Noir snuck her a mischievous grin that she didn't quite like and flipped over the top of it to land on the padded bench. At first she was unsure what he was doing, but then he tore one glove off, casting it over his shoulder without a thought, where it fractured into shards of lime-colored light and fizzled out of existence. He struck a chord near the left end of the keys with a slow, show-offy wink. Walking up the scale with his left hand, he tugged off his other glove with his teeth. Atoms of leather collapsed into photons of light and without even a glance at the keys he struck a full, complex, two-handed chord.

"Yep," he declared, drinking in her reaction. "Good as new!"

She couldn't help it. The unbidden image of Chat Noirㅡthe most restless person _alive_ ㅡpracticing at a piano for hours on end was completely at odds with anything she'd ever have guessed about his private life. "You play piano?" she asked incredulously.

He eyed her and smoothly shifted chords, a fifth to a third to a sixth. "Does that surprise you?"

"Yes, actually."

The latest chord dissolved into a series of lilting runs, each slower and sadder than the last, descending the scale into a deep resonant hum. He was still looking at her through his ruffled bangs instead of at the keys, where his fingers roamed freely. The song shifted into a minor key. She realized she was returning his stare and tore her eyes away.

"We should go," she suggested. "We're both running on empty and there's still a bit of damage left in the lobby."

But the song continued behind her and when she turned back to him he was off in his own world, smiling at the empty music stand and diving into an unconventional time signature that she didn't recognize. Despite herself, she longed to hear the rest of it. Whatever it was, it was a decidedly beautiful piece of music and the fact that Chat Noir was the one playing it made it all the more tantalizing. The only thing she'd ever seen him do with his fingers (besides touch her) was to rend, dissolve, burn, and crush. She'd never seen him create anything before. And like it or not, she wanted to see more.

So even though she felt the last dregs of magic trickling away into the air behind her and could see the faint sparkles evaporating from her suit (the telltale sign that she had less than fifteen minutes left till forced detransformation), she walked around the piano and sat beside him on the bench. His eyes flitted to her in brief surprise as he made room. But the colorful melody danced on without interruption.

Unable to meet his inquisitive gaze, she focused instead on his hands. The way they moved. It was strange, seeing them without the usual gloves. She noticed that his ring wasn't burnt charcoal black at all and was, in fact, a flawless silver. And the way his hands roved gracefully across the keys was similarly flawless, as if underneath the wild roguish shell that was 'Chat,' he was someone totally unrecognizable.

Someone else.

The key progressed back from minor to major and the whole piece ground to a bright, songbird crawl.

Marinette had to look away, toward the empty hall. She was never going to be able to think of anything else ever again when he took her by the hand. Try as she might to convince herself that she wasn't curious about his identity, every once in awhile something like this would come along, and it was a slap in the face. A reminder. That underneath Chat was a person she didn't know. A person that, no matter how she reasoned with herself in the dead of night, she desperately longed to know.

It had been almost five minutes by the time the song petered down to a single final chord that he plucked three times, the last time in the highest octave available. Only when the reverberations had faded from the farthest corners of the vaulted ceiling did Marinette speak up.

"That was beautiful," she admitted softly, hands still folded tightly in her lap. Normally she steered clear of feeding Chat's oversized ego, but this wasn't about Chat at all. That song had sprung from the man underneath.

He seemed to come to himself a little bit, shaking off the trance. One hand rubbed shyly at the back of his neck. "You really think so?"

"Absolutely," she insisted. "You have such a talent for it, and the song was... It was so sad and somehow so happy at the same time. I've never heard anything like it." Having played cello for six years, she'd studied her fair share of classical music. But she couldn't place that song in her memories. The accidentals harkened of Chopin, but the complicated runs were all Bach, and the whole thing was held up with extremely modern, rock-esque overtones that were unlike anything she'd studied. It was driving her mad trying to recognize it. "What's it called? Who's the composer?"

For some reason this flustered him even more. The hand on his neck moved to his jaw, tracing it, and he bit his lip. It was uncharacteristic for him to show embarrassment about anything; he was possibly the most shameless person she'd ever encountered. Had she struck a nerve?

"What?" she giggled. "Who is it? I'm not a music snob. I'm not gonna judge your taste in classical composers."

He brushed his hair away from his face, hitting with with an vulnerable, unreadable look. "I wrote it," he told her. "For you."

"Oh," she breathed, and he might as well have punched all the air from her lungs.

For all the nonchalance with which he'd thrown himself into the song, she had assumed he was merely showing off for her like usual. Not in a thousand lifetimes would she have guessed that he was using this moment to share something intimate with her. And if she hadn't asked, would he have even told her? Probably not, since she was always scolding him for giving too much of himself away, or shooting him down when he sought a piece of her that she wasn't ready to part with. If she hadn't asked, she might never have known.

"That's not weird is it?" he laughed nervously when she took too long to respond.

And damn it all, she was hopelessly fascinated by the puzzle piece he'd just handed her. Here was a boy who had sat down in his free time, in his own life, and _written her a song._

"Fuck, I knew it. It's weird."

"No, it's not weird," she spoke up. "I loved it. Really." She must have painted enough sincerity into her voice because he seemed to untense a bit. "Does it have a name?"

"Uhhh… no," he said, a little too slowly. Almost like he'd tried to name it and failed. "It's untitled."

"Untitled? That's okay," she teased. "The best things in life are untitled." He made to lower his hand from its position at the back of his neck, which drew her attention to that ring of his again; the brightest platinum underneath the black illusion that was his transformation. Without thinking she reached for it. It was cold and smooth to the touch, carved on the sides with an intricate geometric design. When she heard him sigh, she realized that not only was she touching his ring, she was basically holding his hand.

Before she could retract at lightspeed, he spoke. "Like us?"

His voice was closer than it had been a second ago and she didn't dare look up to see the evidence. She didn't have to ask. She knew what he meant. _Untitled_.

"Ladybug," he whispered, and her head snapped up. When it did her nose immediately brushed his, his leather mask catching on her satin one, riding it up the ridge of her nose.

She sucked in a sharp breath. His eyelids lowered and he pulled away just a fraction of a centimeter, only enough to let her mask unwrinkle. He watched it right itself with an air of extreme concentration, and his breath descended over her like a rising tide, warming her cheeks, her lips, her neck. She shivered. He noticed.

The hand she was holding slipped from hers, coming up to brush lightly at her chin. Their foreheads touched…

Then a green flash of light from below caused her to jump and him to huff with disappointment. They both looked down at the floor, where his boots were evaporating into particles of light, leaving behind a spotless pair of bright yellow converse. Huh, she thought. Yellow.

It almost hurt when he pulled away, smiling easily, as if a change the size of a continental rift hadn't almost just happened. "That's my cue," he said. "I must leave you to finish up the lobby on your own, my lady." He stood over her, clicking the dust cover shut over the keys. "Until tomorrow?"

"Wait," she blurted, heart still beating in her throat. "If Iㅡ Will you record that song for me? I'llㅡI'll bring you a flashdrive to save it on."

Surprise crossed his face again, and his cat ears evaporated next. He was really cutting it close. "Sure, Ladybug. Although," he chuckled ruefully, "I guess this means I'll have to name it."

She walked her fingers along the dust cover, thinking of the blissful look on his face as he'd played. "Nothing stays untitled forever," she murmured, unable to look at him. She didn't have to. He'd know exactly what she meant. _Like us._

.

.

Nearly a year later, Marinette was sitting on a bench outside a bookshop, soaking in the last day of summer before she started her first semester of university. It had been a lovely summer. But as excited as she was for tomorrow, she was feeling strangely nostalgic. So instead of starting on one of her assigned texts early, she set her pile of books aside and put in her earbuds. She listened to all her favorite songs throughout lycee, letting the sun warm her lap and her closed eyelids while she retraced the highlights of the last couple years.

She'd been there almost two hours and her battery was running low when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. Startled out of her trance, her eyes flew open, expecting to see someone asking her for change, or to sign their petition, or to scoot over and make room on the bench. But it was none other than Adrien.

She tore her earbuds out so fast it almost hurt.

"Sorry to interrupt," he was saying. His face radiated happiness, like the fact that he'd run into her here had made his entire day. "You looked like you were really into your music. I just wanted to say hi. It's been weeks!"

"Yeah," she breathed. "No worries! I'm glad you did. You wanna, um, sit?" she offered in a pitch three times higher than her regular speaking voice. She almost dropped all her books moving them aside for him, and in the end he laughed and took them from her, opting to set them on his lap instead of the ground. "What brings you here?"

"I was bored out of my mind waiting for the semester to start," he laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners endearingly. "I just wanted a book I haven't read before. Of course, this is _much_ better."

Marinette must have flushed down to her toes.

"Although, I can leave you alone if you were going to studyㅡ"

"No!" she blurted, "I mean I was," she amended quickly, faltering under his inquisitive green eyes. "But you're right, this is much better. I've missed you." Internally she slapped herself for that last partㅡit had tumbled off her tongue without her permission.

But his eyes only crinkled even further. "I've missed you too," he said, and she swore she was _this close_ to passing out. "It's been kind of a lonely summer in general," he sighed. "Hey, I saw your fall class schedule on facebook the other day. It's pretty similar to mine, actually. We should get lunch together sometime. Maybe study together between classes? I don't know how I'm going to survive without Nino attached to my hip."

"Um, yeah," she breathed. She didn't care if he wasn't talking about a date; he could have asked her to help him carry his books to class and she would have responded just as passionately. "Same with me and Alya," she laughed. "So I'd love that."

"Cool," he said, and if she wasn't mistaken it was with a great sigh of relief. "So, hey. What were you listening to when I so rudely startled you?"

She followed his line of sight to her phone on her lap, where her headphones were tangled in a haphazard pile after having been ripped out at lightspeed. The music app was still going. She hadn't bothered to pause. "Just a playlist I made back in lycee," she explained. "All my favorite songs." As she looked, the song she'd been listening to when Adrien tapped on her shoulder ended. It was replaced by the next on the list, and her stomach dropped out.

 _/ cover art not found /_

[ **nothing stays untitled forever**.mp4]

 _artist unknown_

 _album unknown_

The seconds on the recording ticked by. 00:01… 00:02… 00:03… Wordlessly, she picked up an earbud and offered it to him, keeping the other for herself. It was purely out of politeness. When someone asks what you're listening to, you offer them a quick listen. Manners. He accepted it happily, scooting closer until they were pressed up next to each other so that he could put it in his ear without pulling her phone off her lap.

Together they listened to the introduction, Marinette duly watching the cars zipping past. She couldn't look at him and listen to Chat's song at the same time. It felt sacrilegious. So concentrated was she on separating her emotions regarding the song and those regarding him, that she didn't notice he was acting strangely until his fingers brushed her wrist, curling softly around it. She ogled it, disbelieving. Then she followed the line of his arm, all the way up to his face, which was turned half-toward her with something like awe. There were tears brimming in his eyes.

"Marinette," he whispered, pulling the earbud out of his ear. "Where did you find this song?"

She followed suit numbly. "My friend," she whispered back. Why were they whispering? Why did it feel like the ground was crumbling beneath the bench? "He wrote it for me."

He blinked hard and one of the tears spilled. Marinette's lungs stopped working as he leaned over her, his breath warmer than the summer air, tickling her face. Their noses touched and the sharpest bolt of déjà vu cut through her, threatening to unravel her at every seam. It was hot, but she still shivered. He was preoccupied, but he still noticed. His hand left her wrist and trailed to her chin, pulling it towards him until their foreheads met. Automatically her trembling hand found his, lingering on the cold metal ring that had always been there, all this time.

Her eyelids fluttered shut. "Oh my god."

"Found you," he whispered. And this time, there was nothing to stop them from kissing.

* * *

.

.

In case you haven't noticed, I have an enormous love affair with music. This is the third one-shot so far to revolve entirely around music haha. I can't help it, it's a huge part of my life. I imagine it's as big a part of Adrien's life as well , since he plays piano (though I just realized literally cannot remember if this is canon or fanon, I read/write way too much fic haha). Marinette being an artist, I'm sure she would have gladly picked up an instrument for school, and I can picture her choosing something unconventional for the fun and the challenge. School orchestras are always running short on cellists, so I bet she's have volunteered to pick it up right away, no matter what instrument she wanted to play. Then of course, she found Bach's cello suites and fell head over heels for the instrument... BUT I DIGRESS.

I imagine piano is one of those things his father didn't have to force him into. In fact, my personal headcanon is that his mother is the one who taught him, before her disappearance/death. Perhaps this is why he dislikes his piano lessons. It's one more reminder that she's gone. :(

I guess I just love the idea of Lady and Chat (or alternatively, Mari and Adrien) bonding over music. I had an Adrien in high school too and I can still pinpoint the exact moment I realized I was in love with him. It was whole we were sitting on a piano bench together in the music building, and he was playing me a song. (Later I was to find out he fell in love with me first, during my solo at a concert). So this particular one-shot was a little piece of my heart. Maybe this is why I'm so thoroughly taken with the love square. It reminds me of my own relationship sooo much. (Though I'm more like Adrien and he's more like Marinette, funnily enough. Haha.)

I know this turned into a ramble, but I just wanted to share. If you ever meet an Adrien or a Ladybug you find yourself falling desperately in love, don't despair. Happily ever after is real. I got mine and so will you. ;)

xoxo


	14. Sunshower

Real talk… this is the first ML fic I ever wrote. Yeah you heard that right. Worse, I started writing it before I ever saw an episode (I was extremely taken with the fanart on Tumblr and before I knew it I'd read a few fics and started writing one lol. Well, before I finished this I watched the whole show and got distracted with side projects. So unfortunately I completely lost direction with this and it's been idling away in Google docs purgatory ever since, unfinished. But I still really like it and so I figured, hey. Might as well just post it as is. This was originally gonna be 2 or 3 chapters, so this is extremely long because I just lumped in everything I had.

(P.S. I think I may have stolen a few lines from this for other fics since I thought I'd never publish this so don't judge me if you see a metaphor I have already used somewhere else or smth…)

* * *

 **Sunshower**

* * *

Dark rain clouds spotted the sky that afternoon, and in between shone great stretches of contradictory sapphire. On Marinette's way home from school the sun blinded her and yet she was caught up in a few minutes of freak rain, which forced her to duck into a shady cafe for cover.

"Oh, a sunshower! Haven't been caught in one of these in a long time."

A few streets to the west, Adrien held his hand out from under an awning, letting it pool in his palm, staring raptly at the sun glares flecking off the raindrops. He peeked sideways at the old woman who had come out of the laundromat to stand next to him and observe the sudden freak rain. It was she who had spoken.

"I've never seen anything quite like it," Adrien admitted. A passing truck splashed through the sun in a puddle, spraying their ankles with glittering raindrops.

"Bad luck, innit?" A few streets east, again, Marinette looked up, realizing the nearby man had been talking to her. He was sitting on a bench by the road, scruffy and skinny and hunched over a weathered book beneath an umbrella. "Though I s'pose it could be good luck, if you like rain." Marinette opened her mouth to ask which one he was, but he just pointed to his umbrella, as though that was all the explanation that was needed.

So Marinette simply nodded and leaned against the wall to wait. The rain subsided, but even as she crossed the road it started up again.

It was just one of those days; like a tossed coin, up in the air and flipping. Soon it would land.

When an akuma attacked a public park uptown an hour later, both Ladybug and Chat Noir were on the scene in record time. In fact they jokingly congratulated each other on their timely appearances, having swooped into the square marking the center of the park at the exact same moment. The akuma, who appeared to have once been the operator of a cotton candy stand, didn't take well to being ignored as the town heroes patted each others' backs on their town-hero-timeliness-record. He promptly declared himself The Swirler, demanded they surrender, and launched his offensive.

But today was a good day. The wind hadn't swept the rain to this part of town yet and Ladybug and Chat Noir had unbreakable duality on their side.

They fell into sync like they were born to work together, and when Chat flawlessly carried out a series of unspoken directions to distract the akuma while she helped a group of park goers that had become stuck to the info booth with swirly sugarwebs, Ladybug would have sworn she was on top of the world. Over on the other side of the fountain, Chat caught the wild smile lighting up Ladybug's features, and it spurred him on the way a cup of coffee could only dream. They were on top of their game. They moved in tandem. They fought like two halves of a whole. The Swirler proved quicker than any akuma they'd ever faced, but today it felt more like a dance than a fight. It was _fun_.

Maybe that was why they weren't worried, even though they still hadn't managed to pin The Swirler when Chat had to use his cataclysm to free Lady from a particularly nasty cotton candy web. It meant he had only five short minutes left to help her. But he couldn't rush her, and she couldn't be rushed. Ladybug was saving her lucky charm for the right momentㅡthe moment when all the cards were setㅡand that moment hadn't come yet.

She'd know when to call it. She always knew. Chat trusted that the way he trusted oxygen.

The four minute beep hit him when The Swirler got to the carousel at the northwest corner of the park. It stood old and faded between the swing set and the jungle gym with an ominous ' _condemned, do not operate'_ sign hoisted up on the wrought iron fence that encircled it. A pang of doubt dug at his concentration when the little beep sounded from his ring. Chat cursed internally at their miraculouses' Achilles heel and motioned to Ladybug that time was spreading thin.

She nodded, then tossed her yo-yo far ahead and swung onto the roof of the carousel, where their opponent was currently dancing circles around the metal canopy, taunting and threatening them with words they knew spewed right down from Hawkmoth. Chat lingered behind by the control panel, wondering why the old familiar carousel had been condemned. Something had to be done about this akuma, and quick. They'd had so much trouble getting a pin on the guy that it would be borderline impossible for Ladybug to defeat him on her own. That's when the three minute beep revved him into third gear. It was time to throw the akuma off balance so LB could get the upperhand. This must be it: the lucky charm moment.

There were only a few buttons on the control panel, so he didn't have to think twice. He jammed his fist into the one marked _on_.

Voila. Marquee lights flickered to life around the canopy's edge and along the interior mirrors, and after a sputtery mechanical cough, a Renaissance piano song began plinking from hidden speakers somewhere underneath the plaster-cast horses.

Ladybug shot him a look that said, _Really?_

Chat grinned sheepishly, letting her know, _That's not what I was trying to do._

In that split second when they caught each other's eyes, The Swirler landed a brutal hit on her. Chat gasped as the sloped roof gave way beneath Ladybug and she went crashing through it to the floor below, the falling debris crushing one of the festive horses on its way down and shattering one of the central mirrors into a dozen fat shards. The Swirler peered down through the ragged hole at the dust cloud with a bark of amusement.

Chat vaulted over the iron fence to defend her, and upon seeing this the akumatized cart owner sprinted down the metal canopy and leapt off itㅡright toward Chat Noir. But he sailed straight over him.

"Haha, sucker!" Chat shouted. "Missed me!"

Chat ignored the two minute beep and lurched onto the dias, grimacing at his lady's misfortune. When she fell she had ended up partially in the seam between the central mechanism and the flat floor where the horses stood, and was now struggling to remove her leg from the splintered crevice there, hissing each time she brushed up on a mirror fragment.

"I'm stuck!" she coughed, choking on the cloud of paint and plaster. "Really, really stuck." He kneeled before her and realized that her yo-yo was out of reach, slung on the hip that was currently wedged inside the carousel's damaged turning mechanism. Dang. She was really in there. Suddenly Ladybug's eyes widened in terror as she spied something beyond his shoulder. " _Chat!"_

Spinning around on a dime, his own heart plunged into a frigid glacial lake. The Swirler was at the carousel's control panel and was eyeing them with a chaotic gleam in his eye.

In a flat second Chat had torn back across the pavement to the control panel. "Oh no you don't!" he growled, twisting the man's wrist right as his finger brushed the _'begin rotation'_ button. If that thing starting moving while LB was half inside it… Bile rose in his throat and he forced his own body between the attacker and the control panel. The ring beeped again, this time marking its final warning. One minute. But he couldn't do anything except struggle. Couldn't run for cover, couldn't reach his weapon, couldn't even let go, because the second he did… He eyed that button over his shoulder. ' _Begin rotation.'_

"Hurry, LB!" Eyes on the akuma, Chat redoubled his efforts, but for all his superhuman strength it was all he could do to keep the man from reaching the button. "LadyㅡI'mㅡout of time!"

"Just get out of here," she hollered back. "I'm almost free. If I could just reachㅡ"

"Not _ㅡ_ _happening_ ," he grunted.

"Chat, don't!" she cried futilely, knowing exactly what _was_ about to happen.

Without preamble the detransformation swept through him, and suddenly it was Adrien Agreste standing there grappling with a murderous akuma. Ladybug wasn't looking. She had refocused all efforts on dragging her leg out of its prison. But around them at a safe distance stood over a hundred onlookersㅡreporters, civilians, young and old, you name itㅡand they all gasped as one as the infamous Chat Noir was replaced with an unarmed civilian.

The majority of Adrien's strength drained out of him with Plagg and he was shoved backwards, bodily, into the control panel. A jolt ran up his spine. He could hear his kwami yelling at him but the words didn't register. Black spots poured into his field of vision at the pain on his back, a warning sign that he was in serious trouble, yet all it did was remind him of Ladybug. Of his need to protect her. Even still, it was more than a regular human could handle, and soon The Swirler had slammed him into the control panel for a second time, a third time, buckling his legs and sending another shockwave through the distant unwitting audience.

Lucky for him, The Swirler had become so engrossed with his newfound easy target that he didn't even notice Ladybug had freed herself. In the back of his mind, under all the white noise, he heard her call out her lucky charmㅡbut only seconds later she was already at his side to tear the akumatized nametag from the cart owner's uniform and purify the butterfly within.

And just like that, it was over.

But…

It wasn't.

Even though the broken rib he was damn certain he'd just sustained on the back of his ribcage was drowning out most other thoughts, Adrien recognized that he had fucked up. Boy, had he fucked up. Sometime in the last three minutes he had stepped sideways out of a dream and into a nightmare, and this was not the kind of nightmare he could wake up from. Shakily he glanced over at Ladybug, who was clutching her completely unused lucky charm to her chest, like it was a homemade parachute and she was about to jump out of a rocket with it.

A blanket? How was she supposed to have used that, anyway?

Adrien caught her eye, a crazed half-smile on his lips. He shrugged at her, as if to say _whoops_ , and the fractured control panel creaked again under his weight. Then he closed his eyes to reality, noting distantly that the crowd of onlookers had seen the all-clear and begun to swoop in on them. No use trying to run now. There were cameras. Too late.

"Adrien."

Her voice was so soft and sure that for a moment the pain felt duller. When he opened his eyes she was there, leaning over him with undisguised concern dancing across her face, followed quickly by sadness, elation, and resolution. He watched her emotional progress with rapt curiosity. _Adrien_ , she had said. Not Adrien Agreste. The girl under Ladybug's mask didn't merely know of him, she _knew_ him. Nerves swept through him then like a static shock and he pressed his lips tightly together, earnestly, eyebrows furrowed as he awaited her next words. A rain drop hit his face. Then another, and another.

"Why did you do that?" she breathed, torn now between emotions so raw he couldn't hope to decipher them without some kind of manual.

"I couldn't leave you on your own."

A smile touched her, and then the crowd was on them in a swarm, shoving past Ladybug in their haste to confront the boy who was Chat Noir. The weird scattered rain finally hit the park, heavier than ever. Adrien went numb as cameras and microphones shoved in at him from all directions from under disposable plastic coverings. A few of the reporters recognized his face and from then on his name was batted around the circle like a beach ball at a concert until he was so nauseous he began to grow faint. After a long minute of this, Ladybug had had enough; she stamped her foot and shoved a few feet of space between the reporters and her partner.

 _No_ , she thought, _not just my partner. My friend. My..._ No, this wasn't the time for that. She peeked at him sideways, through her lashes, steeling herself to do the stupidest thing she had ever done.

The blood drained out of Adrien's face as he saw determination taking root in his partner's soul. He knew exactly what was about to happen. "Ladybug," he pleaded through clenched teeth, hyper-aware of the prying microphones, "don't. It's not worth it." _I'm not worth it._

The undertone didn't go unheard, and it bothered her to her core. Ladybug squared her shoulders, seeing this boy for the very first time, not as Adrien and not as Chat, but as someone in between. Someone new.

"I'll decide that," she declared hotly. "I won't leave you on your own either."

The eavesdropping crowd pressing in on all sides less than a meter away didn't matter to her. This had nothing to do with them; this was a private moment between friends. As they stared each other down the white space between them crackled with intensity. Adrien shut his mouth. _This battle was lost before it even began,_ he realized. _You made this decision the second I lost my transformation._

And she had. Abruptly Ladybug turned away from him, stepping in front of him to obscure him from view of the cameras, then met each reporter once in the eyes before clearing her throat.

The sea of questions sputtered to a stop as they collectively took note that Ladybug was about to speak. But instead of launching into a speech, she whispered, " _Release."_

With a flash of light, Ladybug was no more and Marinette Dupain-Cheng stood blinking in an onslaught of camera flashes and shrieks of delight and surprise. She could no longer hear any distinct questions; they all crashed together into an indistinguishable cacophony. Tikki flitted straight into her purse, and if she wasn't mistaken she saw someone small and black streak out from behind Adrien and follow in after her. Must be… No, this wasn't the time for that either. She'd have to meet the new guy later.

Inside her chest her heart had flatlined and inside her head was a giant exclamation point that had yet to grow into the fifty-page essay on why this was the stupidest thing she'd ever done. Oh, to be frank, it _surely_ would by the end of the day. But for now it was just (!). She felt almost numb, in fact, and lifelessㅡuntil something warm brushed her wrist.

She glanced down. Saw a hand.

Followed the arm with her eyes up to the shoulder it was attached to.

To the face.

To Adrien's warm smile, to the crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

His calm, familiar face stood out in stark contrast to the chaotic hurricane around them, enveloping her in an island of security. A simple gesture of solidarity was all it was. She recognized that, somewhere deep down as his fingers curled into hers. Yet she melted anyway.

"Everyone shut up! Just shut up, _shut up,_ oh my god shut _up_ , we won't hear them talking with all this shouting going on!"

Both Marinette and Adrien started violentlyㅡit was Alya who had spoken. She was panting and sweating, probably having just sprinted here from way across town, and her hair and clothes were all askew like she had physically fought someone for the place at the head of the crowd where she now stood, holding her video camera aloft.

"Well?" Alya entreated in the ensuing deathly silence. Her eyes sparkled and pleaded. There would be emotions later, when she was alone, but in this once-in-a-lifetime moment she was a journalist. "Say something."

Adrien clung to Marinette's hand like a lifeline and waved at Alya's camera lens. "Hello," he offered. He was dead. He was so dead.

He bit his lip and checked Ladybug'sㅡuh, Marinette's reaction. She was giving him the patented _Really?_ look.

He smiled sheepishly _. Sorry?_ It was too much, it was all too much. Ladybug's eyes on Marinette's face.

"And?" Alya demanded. _Seriously? Hello?_ She turned her camera on Marinette, raising an eyebrow. _Give me something better than that to work with girl or so help me god..._

But for once, Marinette's inner monologue was startlingly silent, her brain a white blank page. "And... goodbye!" she panicked, then promptly started tugging Adrien by the hand through the crowd toward the street.

Adrien stumbled at first, running into a dozen different people, disoriented by the sudden rain and the sudden movement. But once they'd broken the dense inner circle he came to life, and then it was he who was pulling Marinette through the crowd. He faltered at the road, cringing away from the too-close inquiring shoulders, but Marinette knew what to do.

"Taxi!" she yelled, bouncing up and down and waving the arm that Adrien wasn't hanging onto for dear life. "No way," she breathed as one peeled a U-turn and splashed to a halt about four meters away. "Just our luck," she giggled manically, and leapt off the sidewalk toward the door.

Adrien crawled in after her and had to wrench the door shut; two of the cameramen were trying to hold it open. "Go," he urged the driver.

The man in the driver's seat was slender and almost too tall for the car, and tipped his bowler hat at them in the rearview mirror. Blinking slowly and unwitting to their hurry, he pulled into the road at a leisurely pace and began to drone on about fees and their potential destination. While the cabby was talking, both their phones started to ring in their pockets, and Marinette spotted a couple reporters catching a taxi back at the park.

"Doesn't matter where you go, just drive faster please," she said, pitch rising as the other taxi pulled in behind them at the first red light.

The man, who had introduced himself as Pasha somewhere in that snail-pace intro, raised both eyebrows at them in the mirror.

Marinette fought the onslaught of texts to her settings menu in order to put her phone on airplane mode, and Adrien borrowed the idea happily. After today they would truly appreciate the phrase 'my phone is blowing up.'

"And can you lose that car behind us?" Adrien added, giving it a furtive glance.

Pasha's eyebrows raised so high they were out of sight beneath the brim of his hat. "What do I look like, a Hollywood stuntman? Or is this a practical joke?"

They were moving again now, and the other taxi stayed bumper to bumper as they made their way north. "I'm not joking," Adrien pressed. He knew they'd have to deal with the press eventually, soon even, (and far, far worse than the pressㅡfriends, _family_ _ㅡ_ ), but that was all backseat to this thing with Marinette. They would need an hour to themselves, bare minimum. One hour alone with Marinette was all he asked. He chanced another glance at her. Still clutching the unused lucky charm, she worried at her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. But she hadn't pulled away from his hand yetㅡin fact, she hadn't even scooted all the way over when she'd clambered into the car. She sat in the middle seat, still, squeezing his hand. That was good, right?

Right?

When he'd taken hold of her hand he'd meant it as a show of solidarity in the eyes of the world, more than anything. But now… they were alone. He brushed his thumb along the side of hers and watched the tension in her shoulders dissipate ever so slightly.

Right. Focus!

"I'm serious," he reiterated to the driver, and used his free hand to empty a stack of bills from his wallet onto the front passenger seat. "I'll pay you double. Triple. I'll pay your speeding ticket if you get one. I'll pay off your loans! I don't care, just please lose that car! And get us somewhere out of the public eye."

Pasha gave the pile of cash a gobsmacked stare, then shrugged. "So be it."

It took a lot of quick turns and yellow lights, but somewhere downtown Pasha managed to lose the other taxi. All three occupants breathed in relief when it finally vanished in the distance behind them, obscured by other cars as the light changed at the intersection. Even if there were news copters out, what were the odds of them picking out the right taxi in the sea of cars? Negligible. So they were golden! At least for awhile...

With the immediate danger gone, Adrien found he could no longer keep his dread tucked in. He dropped his forehead into his free hand, groaning. "My life is over, Marinette."

She squeezed his hand. "Our lives are over," she corrected mournfully.

He shook his head. "I can't believe you did that. We didn't _both_ have to suffer. You should have let me do this alone."

Ladybugㅡ _Marinette_ ㅡpulled his hand from his eyes, prompting him to lift his chin and look at her. When he did, his heart stuttered over its next beat. There was that willful spark he had fallen in love with, glowing on her small frame like fire on a wick. She whispered so only Adrien would hear. "I don't think so, _chaton_." He couldn't help it. He swooned. His stomach flipped over so hard that he felt it in his broken rib. He would have kissed her right then and there, manners be damned, if Pasha hadn't cleared his throat in the front seat.

"I take it you kids are in some kind of trouble," he posed casually.

Marinette flushed and turned away. Their noses had brushed, briefly, and they were alone in the world. But now they were back in a taxicab in Paris, their deepest secrets were open source material, and their driver was growing ever more suspicious of their crime.

"You could say that," Marinette conceded, then promptly doubled over in laughter.

With one eyebrow raised, Adrien asked, "What's so funny?"

She held up the blanket her lucky charm had given her and shook it, still laughing. "I didn't even use this!"

He couldn't help it. He joined her in laughing.

After another few minutes of these manic suppressed giggles Pasha pulled the cab into an empty parking lot behind a large brick building. "There's another park just south of here," he told them as the car idled, pointing the way. "A little neighborhood one. It closes at six, so you'll have to hop the fence, but it should be empty. I hope that's secluded enough for you."

They thanked him profusely, and Adrien scribbled his personal phone number on one of the bills in the front seat before climbing out, assuring the man that he'd been serious about paying off his loans. Adrien thought that was more than fair for their rescuer. Pasha nodded politely, though he didn't believe for an instant that this possibly-delinquent teenager really had that kind of money at his disposal (boy would he be in for a shock later on), and wished them well.

After scanning the area and concluding the park was too small to have any sort of security guard, they climbed the chain link fence with ease and disappeared into the grove of trees. Already the sun had vanished behind the mountains and the sky above them continued to darken, from rose to gold to deepest indigo. They had driven straight out of the rain in their attempt to lose that other taxi, but they could still see it cascading down in a distant part of the city.

"What are we doing here?" Marinette fretted. Adrien rested against a thick white trunk and she plopped down between two bulges of root at his feet. "Everyone in the world is probably looking for us."

As soon as she hit the ground, Tikki and Plagg emerged from her purse, watching their charges earnestly.

"Hi," Marinette said, wiggling her fingers at the unfamiliar black kwami.

"Hi yourself," Plagg deadpanned. "You guys are in it deep this time." He turned his withering gaze on his own miraculous holder, who immediately averted eye contact. "Seriously, Adrien? _Hello?_ That was all you had?"

"Leave him alone," Tikki admonished. "He did fine, considering the circumstances. Hi, Adrien," she added, shifting from icy to sweet. "I've heard so much about you."

"Tikki!" Marinette hissed.

Adrien flushed. _Me?_ "Nice to finally meet you," he said politely, tapping his fingers on the tree. "Look… Do you think you guys could give us a minute alone?"

Snickering, Plagg followed Tikki up into the branches above them, where they vanished. Adrien and Marinette watched the leaves shaking for a minute, certain that their friends hadn't gone far and were going to be eavesdropping.

"So," Marinette choked out when the silence got to her.

"So." He couldn't take his eyes off her. Not now. Now that they were alone, nothing between them, not even a mask. "I know you didn't want this," he said sadly. She'd only said so a million times over the last few years, that she never, ever wanted her two lives to mix. "Are you… alright?"

She immediately flushed. "Leave it you to be worried about me," she murmured, toying with her hands in her lap. "I'll be okay. It's _you_ I'm worried about. Your dad, your job, your name... That's why I… I thought it would help, you know, if it was both of us instead of just you in the spotlight. I thought it would balance the scales."

Balance the…? _Ohhhh_.

Belatedly, Adrien realized the full implication of the stunt Mari pulled back there. She wasn't simply getting his backㅡwell, she was, but it was more than that. She had widened the spotlight he'd reluctantly trained on himself to include her. To include Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Prior to her flashy reveal, the story brewing there on camera had been one about Adrien Agreste, part time model and newly revealed vigilante, and it would not have turned out well for him at all. But Ladybugㅡ _Marinette, my friend Marinette_ ㅡhad taken the narrative by the reins and blossomed a potentially disastrous seed about a model's secret life into a daring story about Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Adrien slid down the tree, landing next to her with a soft thud. "You are incredible, Mari."

For some unfathomable reason this caused her to droop forward. "Because I'm Ladybug, right?"

Shame swept through him at her despondency. A moment ago he'd felt closer to her than ever, but those four words opened a chasm between them. He'd spent so much time praising Ladybug in the past… Was it possible that one of the reasons she had been afraid to reveal herself, even to him, her most trusted confidante, was because she was afraid he'd be let down by who he found?

"No," he assured her softly, and it was true. "Because you're not Ladybug." She glanced up, squinting one eye like she was questioning his sanity. "You're not Marinette either," he decided. "You're…" He pondered, tapping his chin, searching for the words and finding none to describe the brand new person sitting beside him. "Somewhere in the middle, maybe," he settled with an uncertain smile.

That caught her off guard. She wondered briefly if he could read mindsㅡafter all, that was precisely what she had been thinking of him ever since she caught sight of his face by the carousel and learned who was hiding beneath Chat's mask.

"I'll concede that," she said. "Thanks for saving my skin, by the way."

He leaned over her, pressing a hand resolutely to his heart. "My secret identity is not more important than the life of my lady."

Heat crested on Marinette's cheeks and she shied away, freshly shellshocked at the reality of it, that the two most important boys in her life were one and the same. It had always been easier to write off Chat's flattery as just thatㅡflattery. But knowing it was coming from soft-spoken, kind-hearted Adrien made it (and her heart palpitated dangerously at the mere idea of this) _sincere_. Oh god, it was true. He was sincere! All this time Chat Noir's loving devotion had been totally, irrevocably sincere. _God help me._ Even though it had grown quite dark she pressed her hands to her cheeks to hide the telltale blush. "This is so weird," she whispered.

Adrien frowned. "Good weird or bad weird?"

"Good weird!" she choked out. "I think?"

But he didn't seem to have heard her. "I've mostly been terrified about what this meant for my life outside Chat Noir," Adrien mumbled, picking at a bit of moss on the fat tree root that stuck up between their thighs. "I haven't even had time to think about what this means for us yet. I mean for Lady and Chat, as partners. You still _want_ me, right?" His voice broke as he said it, but it had to be said and now it was out there, out of his hands.

The question hit her like a slap. Here she was wallowing in her own self-pity about Adrien loving Ladybug and not Marinette and she had forgotten that, at least to his knowledge, neither of her halves loved either of his. (Definitely the least true thing ever assumed by anyone ever. But still, he didn't know!) That crack in his voice... It was rejection.

 _Oh my god, Adrien Agreste thinks I'm rejecting him._

"Adrien," she ventured shyly, like she was stepping on eggshells. Then she sighed. Screw it. It was time to throw it all on the table. Might as well get the rest of the secrets out there before a reporter dug them up and waved them around shouting _yoohoo, look what I found!_ "That was the dumbest question I've ever heard. Of course I still want you. If anything I want you more than ever."

"Oh." His voice was all gentle surprise. Her words filled his bones with something warm and fuzzy... although, on second thought, that might have been the shock setting in from the whole broken bone thing.

He should probably mention the fracture at some point. Later. Not right now.

He'd always kinda suspected (hoped?) that Marinette had a crush on him, and her kwami's thoughtless comment had sorta confirmed it. Still, it was nice to hear _her_ say it. So the whole time he'd been chasing Ladybug's tail, she'd been chasing his right back. Around and around in circles. Now that they finally caught each other, what were they going to do?

"You're right," he agreed with a laugh, "this is weird."

"Good weird or bad weird?"

"Ugly weird," he replied instantly, then instantly regretted it. This was so not the time for bad jokes, was he insane? "That was a terrible joke and I'm sorry. My mouth said it before my brain said no."

But Marinette was stifling a giggle. "Was that a _The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly_ joke?"

He groaned. "Yes. You've seen it?"

Marinette let the giggle loose, then, and it cascaded down on him like bells. "I love spaghetti westerns. They're so… weird. Italian cowboy movies. Like, how do they even exist? Why?"

Adrien bit his lip to hide his irrational smile. "I know, right? It's the same as if Japan got really big on mariachi music or something. It's the strangest phenomenon ever."

"Leave it to you to mention mariachi music when you've got the girl of your dreams two centimeters away," Plagg droned down from somewhere in the tree, but then went silent after a thump and a rustle of leaves. Adrien went white as a sheet and turned away. Plagg was right. But how was he supposed to handle this, huh? What was he supposed to do? Marinette was Ladybug and she knew he was in love with her. What more could he say?

"I guess this _is_ kind of ugly weird," Marinette mused, toying with her purse strap where it lay forgotten in the grass. "It's all so… messy."

"Yeah." He couldn't bring himself to turn back. "Messy." But he could feel her shrug because her shoulder brushed his, sending a little shock through his heart.

"I always thought if we ever did reveal ourselves it would be… I don't know. Romantic?" she blurted quickly. "I thought it would at least just be between the two of us, alone somewhere, on a rooftop, maybe, or on top of the tower…" she trailed off, remembering that she was not daydreaming and that she was actually speaking out loud.

She almost jumped out of her skin when Adrien's fingers snaked into hers once more, for the first time since they had left the taxi. "I dunno," he murmured. "I thought it was pretty romantic."

Marinette looked up slowly and saw that he was leaning over her again, staring down with a thick intensity that had her frozen in place like he'd hit her with a tractor beam. She thought back on that afternoon, how he'd sacrificed his sanctity for her life, and how she'd in turn sacrificed her sanctity to walk the precarious road by his side. She was very still. "I guess it was," she whispered.

"Mari," he breathed, raising his other hand to brush his thumb across her cheek. It wasn't cold but goosebumps prickled up along her neck. "How do you feel about me now that you know? I mean… all of me."

Marinette could only lean into his hand, feeling the rest of the world slip away from her, like they were in their own little snow globe. Just him and her and the grass below. "Guess."

Adrien smiled ruefully then, watched her intently, fascinated at her demeanor. She'd never acted this way with him before. Not as Adrien and not as Chat. It was like they'd been given a fresh start.

"Okay," he ventured. "Um… messy?"

Marinette rested her hand on top of his. "Yeah," she had to agree. "Really messy. Still trying to reconcile the both of you in my head, you know?"

"I know. Me too."

"Messy," she concluded.

He nodded once. "Yeah, me too. Messy isn't bad, though, right?" Sure it would take some time to rationalize his different feelings toward Lady and Mari and merge them internally, but as far as he was concerned that stuff would come. He wasn't worried.

"No." She wasn't worried either. So Chat and Adrien were the same. Sure it was complicated but the primary emotion she felt toward the boy sitting in front of her was still love, and what was wrong with that? Nothing at all.

"So…" he said slowly, that impish look in his eye.

Her heart fluttered as his nose brushed hers again. "So."

"This sucks but somehow I'm so glad it happened." He pressed his nose further into hers, until their foreheads lay against each other. "Is that crazy?"

 _Not any crazier than the way I feel about you,_ she thought. "Where do we even go from here?" she laughed. "This is _all_ crazy."

"Well," he said, dead seriously, "first I am going to kiss you. After that, we'll see. I'm making this up as I go along."

" _Chat,"_ she whined, a flood of self-consciousness winding her at her partner's shameless flattery. Then she bit her lip. _Whoops_. "I mean, Adrien. Crap, why is this so hard? Am I talking to Chat or Adrien right now?!"

But Adrien was far away. He'd been waiting his whole career to hear Ladybug say the word _Chat_ like that, wistfully and sexily and… oh god, he was a goner. "Definitely Chat," he grinned, then pressed his lips to hers.

She made a soft _hmf noise,_ followed by a delicious moan that sent shivers running up his arms. He moved his other hand to her face then, cupping her cheeks firmly as he tilted further into the kiss. When he took a breath, meaning only to pause for a second, she launched into nervous talking.

"I'm kissing Chat," she whispered. "And you're kissing Marinette. You're in love with _Ladybug_ , though, aren't you? Isn't this weird? Is it wrong?"

Adrien moved his hands to her neck, steadying her as she began to fret. "Nothing is wrong when you're in love."

She took hold of his collar and shook him. "You're so hopeless. That doesn't make any sense!" But still she launched herself back at him, throwing her arms around his neck as she kissed him again. He hadn't been expecting it and therefore he floundered for a second before reacting with shameless enthusiasm, wrapping both arms around her waist to pull her toward him. There was no confusion in this kiss. No misunderstanding. There was only them. Marinette moved one hand into his yellow hair and sighed; it was exactly as soft as it had always looked.

Little did she know, head scratches were Adrien's _ultimate weakness._ He melted instantly in her arms. She smelled of raspberries and dough and yet her lips tasted like… He pulled her lower lip between his teeth and ran his tongue over it experimentally. Yep, definitely honey.

" _Chat,"_ she complained again, a lively tremble running up her arms and weakening her grip.

"Sorry!" He released her lip, chastised. "Too much?"

But even as he pulled back, her lip stayed puffed out in a pout, her mouth slightly ajar. It killed him. "No," she shot back. "Not enough. You're teasing me on purpose."

He hadn't been trying to, really, but he couldn't blame her for thinking so. "You know me, LB, I just love teasing you."

A ponderous look crossed her face, causing Adrien to give pause right as he was about to pick up where they left off. "What is it?" he asked, missing her hands in his hair the moment she moved them to his biceps.

"It's just… we slipped back into it so easily," she mused, thinking back on the last couple minutes. She calling him Chat, he calling her Ladybug. "I feel like Chat and Lady know each other better than Adrien and Mari ever could."

Subconsciously Adrien unfurled his fingers from the fabric of her shirt and released her. She sounded so… forlorn. "We have time to get to know each other better."

With a great deal of trepidation, Marinette pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them as if she was cold. The skin on her left thigh was latticed with cuts from the broken carousel where she'd been stuck, and ached as her arms brushed the fabric there. In the midst of their double reveal she had completely forgotten to use her lucky charm to heal everything. (Hell, she hadn't even used the lucky charm! She was still stuck with that useless blanket. What was she supposed to do with it now?) That was all very unlike Ladybug. But… it was typical Marinette.

"Are you sure you want to know me better? Underneath Ladybug it's all just Marinette, Adrien. There's nothing more to Ladybug that you haven't already met. It's just me from here on down."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." The words tasted sour in his mouth.

Marinette shrugged. "Maybe it is."

"Marinette!"

"I'm not trying to be self-deprecating or anything like that," she prattled, "I'm just being honest. I don't want you to be disappointed. Ladybug just isn'tㅡ"

"I know what you meant," he interrupted, "and I hope I only have to explain this once. I know things between us are a little confusing now that we know the truth. But I'm still in love with you." It was the first time he'd ever said it like that, simple and factual. He'd thought it would be like ripping a bandaid off but it wasn't; now that he'd done it he felt more like a bonfire under a spigot of gasoline. "I don't just love pieces of you, Mari, that's not how love works. _I_ _love_ _you_. All of you. Which is more of you now than it was this morning, but it doesn't matter. I could find out you were living a third secret life tomorrow and I'd still feel the same. I couldn't love you less if I tried. You understand that, right?"

"I understand," she soothed. In the wake of his confession, Marinette could only blink. It was very dark now, and a distant lamppost reflected back at her from a surreal spot in the back of his shadowed eyes, reminding her of Chat's luminous green irises. Who knew her words would cause him such distress? "I guess I just didn't realize _that_ was how you felt about me." How deep his love went. So far she hadn't dared wonder, but here he was telling her in so many words. She would never question it again. "I feel the same."

Dangerous ideas leapt into his head at her choice of words. "You mean…?"

"Yes, _chaton_." He was going to make her say it, wasn't he? "I love you too."

Adrien groaned, positively beside himself. "You have to stop calling me that."

"What? Why? I thought you likedㅡ"

"Because I _really like it_ and the struggle is real andㅡ"

"I can call you whatever I want, _chaton_ _ㅡ_ _nnh!"_ She squeaked as he pounced on her, knocking her flat on her back. A slice of pain glanced through his ribㅡcrud, he forgot about that againㅡbut her body was his morphine. There was something electric about the way his warm stomach pressed against hers as their shirts rode up a couple inches, about the leftover rain on the grass that wetted his forearms as he pressed her to the ground with his full weight. In the heat of the kiss he felt his belt buckle catch on the button of her jeans, and shifted his hips against hers in an innocent attempt to relinquish itㅡ

ㅡand broke her.

Adrien heard the break: it snapped like a twig in the back of her throat, a faint, enticing whimper. What he couldn't guess was that it was the last part of Marinette's brain that still warned, " _These are uncharted waters. Be careful. You might get your heart broken. You might break his! Figure this shit out before diving in headlong, for God's sake!"_

It was that part of her brain giving up with an abrupt, " _Fuck it. This is fine."_

 _Because Adrien Agreste had just ground his hips on hers and he was_ _so much heavier than he looked_. So many times she'd felt his weight: lifted him, tossed him, thrown him, dodged him, carried him, hell, she'd even been underneath him before. But always in battle. Never here. Never like this.

Having witnessed Marinette go catatonic ( _haha_ ㅡ _no, bad cat, focus_ ), Adrien pushed himself up on his elbows to reassess the situation. "Marinette? Are you alright? Should I move?"

"No!" She sprang to life, throwing her arms around him as he made to get up, trapping him there with her. "Sorry, I'm fine," she assured him, though her voice sounded vaguely like a tea kettle that had been left on fifteen minutes too long. "I'm just… so mad at myself!" she blurted, which was a convenient truth that helped steer the subject away from the fact that Adrien had just _ground his hips on her_. (Which she didn't think he had done on purpose anyway. If she thought that she might have exploded.)

It worked. Adrien tilted her head at her endearingly, blinking slowly. She wondered if he had any idea how very much like a cat he looked in that moment.

"Why?" he asked gently. "Specifically."

Marinette bit her lip, moving her hands from his back into his hair once more. When she dragged her fingernails lightly up the base of his neck his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, nuzzling his face into her hair. Head scratches, huh? With devilish glee, Marinette stowed that precious bit of information in the old brain-vault.

"Because," she answered. "Here I've been pining away after you for three whole years and I could have had you any time I wanted!"

Adrien rose over her again, the playful Chat-like glint in his eye softening into something a lot more Adrien-y. "You were pining after me?"

Feeling her cheeks grow hot again, Marinette averted her gaze. "You're surprised? I already told you I was in love with you."

"Yeah but… you said pining that time," he pressed, and she felt the back of his fingers come to rest on her cheekbone. "I'm sorry, Marinette. I was so busy chasing Ladybug that I couldn't see anyone else. If it makes you feel better, I was pining too."

* * *

...

Sorry, but uh.. yeah that's where it ends hahaha. I know it's an unbelievably stupid place to end and would've made for a better finished project if I just cut out everything after they get into the taxi. And I was going to do that but, hey, there are no rules in fanfiction lmao and I reeeally liked that kissing scene and I thought you would too. So whatever, just take it. *jazz hands* P.S. The blanket was gonna be for when they accidentally fall asleep in the park.

The next two stories are gonna be like this too. (Small self-contained pieces of larger unfinished works, I mean.)

One last thing, please don't beg me to finish this. I would _never_ post something that was half done like this unless there was no chance in hell of me ever finishing it. I just figured you guys might prefer to see it in this condition than not at all (this is definitely one of my funner reveals and I get sad every time I scroll past it in Google docs). So pls don't ask it'll just make me feel bad lol.

Instead, try checking out some of my multichapter fics. :) Those are wayyyy more interesting than this, I can promise you that. Specifically, Strange Aeons! That story is setting out to be my ML magnum opus and it's where 90% of my energy is going right now. xoxo


	15. Your Number One

Another one of those stories that's been burning a hole in my Google docs folder for too many months. Take it.

* * *

 **Your Number One**

* * *

The city lights blurred all around them, bleeding upwards into the scant starry night as Adrien lunged, sprinted, and lunged from roof to roof, flying across Paris like the apocalypse itself was biting at his ankles. Every time his feet touched a surface, a pained noise of displeasure escaped Ladybug's mouth, and he would try to shift her into a better position. But it was borderline impossible when he had one arm belting her to his chest and the other on his baton, propelling them toward help. When he paused briefly on a chimney to check their progress on his baton's map, Ladybug lifted her face from the crook of his shoulder and asked, "Where are we going?"

Adrien used her distraction to discreetly examine her wound again: a ragged bloody tear straight through the muscle below her right shoulder, left behind after he had cataclysmed the arrow of out her chest. It looked too high to have punctured a lung, but her ragged breathing was not reassuring.

"Hospital," he said. "We're only three milesㅡ"

"No!" Ladybug blurted, though her brave face was tainted by her obvious pain. "No, you can't take me to a hospital, Chat."

He blanched at her, stumbling at the edge of the roof where he'd been about to vault off. "Bug, you're _hurt_."

"I'm okay," she lied. "Really, I…"

She went quiet and her eyes glossed over, sending Adrien's heart off a cliff. "Ladybug?"

When she snapped back into the conversation, she skipped over the lapse as though it hadn't happened. "If you take me to a hospital, that's lights out for my secret, kitty."

Adrien bit his lip hard, weighing his options. She was right, of course. By now everyone in France had seen the footage from tonight's hair-raising battle. Had seen the latest akuma rampaging across downtown Paris after losing his wife to cancer, using his temporary abilities to force the citizens of Paris to share in his grief by taking away their loved ones with debilitating arrows. Had seen as he tried to take Ladybug from Chat Noirㅡand when she proved too fast, settled for taking Chat Noir from Ladybug.

Surely by now everyone had seen footage of Ladybug shoving him aside and taking the arrow for himㅡseen it sink into her shoulder instead of his heart. God knew _he'd_ be seeing it in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

There was no doubt in Adrien's mind that by now everyone had also seen as she purified the akuma Chat defeated alone while she bled. Had watched as Chat gently pried her hands off the arrow shaft (she had been trying to pull it out herself, which was tearing the flesh and accelerating her blood loss) and disintegrated it himself. Had seen as she reversed the abnormally high-level damage of the attack, but paid the price by not having enough magic left over to heal the damage to her own body. Had seen as Chat shoved past the reporters with the woman he loved tucked tightly in his arms, still bleeding, and leapt away from the scene.

Ladybug was right, as always. Her detransformation was only one minute off, now, and his nine. If he took her to a hospital, everyone would know her name and her face. Her friends and her family and her weaknesses. _Hawkmoth_ would know.

But what else was he supposed to do?

Adrien wished he had a hand free to push her tangled bangs from her face, but since his were full, he could only touch their foreheads together and stare deeply into her cerulean eyes to convey the bottomless depth of his concern. "This secret isn't worth dying over, LB. You're losing blood."

"I'll be okay," she insisted, though her voice was strained and cracking. "I just need to rest and… and feed my kwami. As soon as I'm able, I can cast another charm and heal myself. It was too much this time. There was so much damage to fix…"

"I can't just leave you! Not like this," Adrien argued, because he knew that's the point she was working towards. They were probably twenty seconds from her forced detransformation, and they were long past the point where one of them would usually scamper away to protect their identities. "I won't."

"No," she whispered, closing her eyes to his unfiltered fear. "I know. And I.. don't want you to."

"Open your eyes," he urged, seeing that she was losing her grasp on consciousness and scared that he still didn't know what to do.

"You're a good cat," Ladybug mumbled. "They're... the cookies are in.. my bag. She likes cookies."

"Who? Your kwami?" Was she asking him to _feed her kwami?_ "I don't understand, Ladybug, where do you want me to take you?"

And even though she was in pain and losing consciousness, the smallest ghost of a smile touched the corner of her mouth. "Home with you?" she whispered.

And then she was out.

Those three words echoed in Adrien's ears, bringing him to a complete mental stop.

 _Home with you_.

She trusted him enough to take her home with him? Without even knowing who he was? Speaking of that, a red sparkle flashed in the corner of his eye, near her feet, and he sucked in a terrified breath. This was it. Should he keep looking? Look away? She _had_ asked him to take her home, knowing full well she was seconds from losing her mask. In doing so, had she at last given him permission to know her face? Was she even lucid enough to give permission for something so monumental? Did she only do it out of necessity or because she really, truly trusted him?

Still undecided when the red light touched her neck, he swiftly adjusted her so her face was hidden again, resting on his shoulder.

But he couldn't help looking down her back, at her civilian clothes. The girl who was sometimes Ladybug had worn a flared navy blazer today, patchy skinny jeans, a pair of old pink flats, and a tiny rose-patterned handbag that he could have sworn he'd seen someone carrying before. _Fuck me,_ he thought. _She's cute_.

"Chat Noir?" The small voice startled him from his observations. Must be the kwami. "I'm Tikki," the red fairylike creature offered timidly, peeking out from behind Ladybug's hair. "What happened?"

"Arrow to the shoulder," Adrien said. "Don't worry, I haven't seen her face. Although..." he sighed, pressing the side of his face to Ladybug's and preparing to change directions and head home.

"What?" Tikki prompted from his shoulder, and he found her with his eyes before swallowing thickly.

"It seemed like, maybe, she wanted me to."

Five minutes later they were dropping through the window of his third floor studio apartment onto the hardwood floor. By the time they arrived they were pushing 1:00am on what was now Saturday morning.

He closed his eyes to avoid seeing her face as he laid her gently on his bed, and listened to Tikki's assessment of the injury while he procured his emergency first aid kit from the secret dresser drawer compartment he'd had custom-made to hide all his Chat-related possessions. On his way back to the bedside, he grabbed Ladybug's _(definitely familiar, where have I seen this?)_ purse from where it lay on the floor by the window. True to Ladybug's word, there were an ungodly amount of cookies inside. Eyes passing over her wallet, he tried not to think about the photo ID that was almost certainly inside it.

"Thank you," Tikki hummed as she accepted the nourishment. But her gratitude turned to shock as Adrien finally lost his hold on his own transformation with a flourish of splashing green lights. " _Adrien?"_

He raised an eyebrow as Plagg went straight for the food stash he kept in his desk. "Yeah, that's my name. You know me?"

Tikki forced down the bit of cookie she'd been choking on and refused to meet his eye. "It's not my place to say."

This reaction set him on edge, of course, and it was all he could think about as he went to tend Ladybug's mess of an injury. First he pulled a scarf out of a drawer and blindly tied it around her eyes so that he wouldn't be tempted any further to look at her face. Then he set about helping her. He eyed her blazer, thinking it might be easiest to just cut it off. But on further inspection the situation grew a bit more complex. Unfortunately, she was wearing a high-necked t-shirt underneath the blazer, so even if he got the blazer off, the wound was still completely out of reach. Which meant...

"Tikki," he fretted, and she too noticed the problem. "How soon till you're recharged enough to heal her?"

"At least…" She thought for a moment. "Three or four hours."

Adrien met her eyes pleadingly.

"Oh honestly," Plagg called out from the desk where he was gorging himself. "You humans and your hangups. Just cut it off!"

"Plagg," Tikki scolded, but then softened her voice for Adrien. "Really, she's not modest or shy," Tikki assured him. "I promise she won't be upset."

But Adrien wasn't so sure, and in the end he decided to try for cutting her shirt in a way that exposed the wound while maintaining the basic structural integrity of the garment. However, the second he nudged her onto her side to begin, she woke. Blindfold still covering her eyes and slurred mumblings falling from her lips, she fumbled in the dark until she found his hand with hers, and touched the cold scissors. The dots slowly connected. "Whuh.. th-e fu- _uck_ 're you.. doing."

Shit. Damn. Shit! "Iㅡyourㅡ" Adrien shifted away from her prone body on the bed, absolutely mortified. "You're still bleeding, LB, and your.. your shirt is in the way of me fixing that."

More awake now than before, she swore colorfully under her breath before going on. "So you were gonnaㅡjus' gonna _cut it off?"_

"Um." In that moment, Adrien was sure Ladybug had decided he was some kind of insane, psychotic pervert. That was, until she finished her thought.

"I can just _take it off myself_ , you stupid cat! You don't have to bring _scissors_ into this! Fuck! My day's already been bad enough without you mutilating my clothes!"

Well… this was definitely an unexpected turn. "LB," he worried. "There's a reason EMTs cut off patients' clothing instead of taking it off normally. It could seriously agitate the wound."

Gesturing wildly at the bedroom she could not see, Ladybug said, "Does this look like an ambulance to you? I _made these_ ," she stressed, and fisted her good hand into the fabric of her shirt protectively. "You are not touching them with those dollar store scissors."

"Ouch. Straight for the dollar store jokes," he laughed, bemused despite himself at her continued ferocity, even in the face of physical trauma. She was already trying to wiggle out of the blazer, so he decided to take pity on her. If she wasn't embarrassed, then it was okay, right? "Come on, at least let me help you."

And to his surprise she let him take over, only moving her arms when directed and hissing as the blood-wet fabric came away from her wound. Then it was off. Luckily it was dark, so there wasn't all that much to see, though that didn't stop his imagination (which didn't seem to have gotten the clue that this was Serious Business) from running away from him. After that ordeal was over it was about an hour of rinsing and cleaning and pressure and patching. Soon she was fast asleep once more. But as soon as he dabbed the area with a saline-soaked cloth, she gasped, bolting upright, and he almost had to fight her into a prone position again, all the while reassuring her of where she was and who he was and what had happened. After a long while he finished bandaging her and sank to the floor next to the bed, resting his tired head on his forearms. Plagg and Tikki had fallen into hushed snores in the corner of his room sometime in the last hour, and he wished he could do the same. But he couldn't sleep. Not when Ladybug was still suffering.

The pain itself seemed more subdued now. He had finally gotten her coherent enough to swallow some water and pain meds, and after that she had calmed down enough to let him finish wrapping gauze around the affected area. Now she was breathing softly with the unmistakable rhythm of sleep.

The steady rise and fall of her breath was soothing, and it had almost lulled him to sleep too when she spoke.

"Adrien?" she whispered in the dark, the word slurred but unmistakeable.

He _leapt_ awake, his head snapping upright so fast he felt whiplash. She had seen his faceㅡand apparently she knew him well enough to recognize him from a strange angle, even in the dark. As his eyes adjusted he saw that she was propped up on one elbow, one hand pushing away her makeshift blindfold in confusion.

"Adrien," she repeated again, no less confused and no less sleepy, but this time with a degree of conviction.

And now that he saw her face, sans blindfold, he knew exactly why she knew him. Because this wasn't just Ladybug. "Marinette," he whispered back.

She cocked her head at him in concern. "Why are you on the floor?"

He bit his arm to keep from laughing at the absurdity of the question, considering the gravity of the multiple unfolding revelations. Instead of answering, he climbed onto the bed, coming to rest next to her, never taking his eyes off her for fear that this was a delicate dream and would shatter should he dare to blink. "How are you feeling?" he asked, instead of the billion other questions brewing in his half-asleep heart.

"Tired," she sighed, and closed her eyes, inching toward him to rest her head on his arm. Her hair had fallen out of its ponytail while she slept, and now it fanned out over his arm, loose and silken. "It hurts so bad, Adrien."

"It'll be okay," he soothed, and chanced a kiss on her forehead. "I promise. You'll be fine in the morning. Just rest now."

"I love you," she sighed.

"I loㅡ" He almost returned the sentiment casually before his tired mind had fully registered her words. _What?!_ Something pricked in the corner of his eye, and he closed his arms around her waist, pulling her even closer. "I love you too," he murmured tenderly into her hair, but she might have fallen asleep again before he got it out.

And despite the frantic stammering of his heart, Adrien followed soon after.

.

.

' _The lady is too fast. I think I'll slow her down with a bit of grief.'_

 _Adrien skidded to a stop, forced to switch on a dime from offense to defense. An arrow sailed over his head as he dodged for his life, another under his arm, and another past his right eye. He hit a wall. Dead end. Then Marinette was there, slamming into him as the next arrow meant for his heart buried itself in her chest._

' _Marinette!' Pigeons flew away as he guided her to her back on the sidewalk, away, away, through the crumbling bricks and into the yawning mouth of the sky. Their attacker cackled. All around them the sidewalk twisted and churned. 'What have you done, Mari? Why?'_

' _Chat...' She reached up to touch her fingertip to his nose._

' _Yes?'_

' _Chat,' she pressed, more insistently, and the world dissolved around her._

' _What, my lady?'_

"Chat!" she hissed, and he startled awake.

It took a couple seconds for the events from the night before to catch up with him as a very male part of him realized he'd woken up in bed with a beautiful girl in his arms, a beautiful _shirtless_ girl, with her back pressed flush against his chest. By the time he arrived on the name Marinette ( _gentle, shy Marinette_ ) he was seeing stars. "Good morning, Marinette," he said carefully, his soft voice at odds with his accelerated heartbeat.

She sucked in a breath. "So you did see me."

"I tried not to," he defended. "Honest. I saw by accident andㅡ"

"It's okay," she said. "I knew you probably would when I told you to bring me here. Now, if you don't mind…"

"Oh!" He flushed and released her from his iron grip. "Sorry!" To his surprise, when she sat up she faced away from him, carefully keeping him out of her line of sight. Almost like she…

"You're not transformed, are you?"

Huh. She sounded nervous about that prospect. Unsure and excited. He deflated a bit, realizing now that she probably didn't remember that brief moment of consciousness when she had seen his face and spoken his nameㅡwhen just for an instant they were both unmasked. She didn't remember that it was him.

"No," he said at length, trying to decide how best to break it to her. "I fell asleep. How are you feeling? Have the meds worn off?" He glanced at the clock. 5:46am. Tikki should be ready by now to heal her; they should probably wake her.

Marinette drew in a long, shuddering breath as she prodded at the inexpertly tied bandage, then laughed. "This fucking hurts like fuck."

"Marinette!" he gasped, and then barked out a loud whooping laugh before clapping a hand over his mouth. It echoed in his vaulted apartment. Lovely, kind, soft-spoken Marinette who could barely say hello without blushing had just said the word fuck twice in one breath. He'd never heard Marinette talk like that in his life! ( _But you've heard Ladybug talk like that on occasion,_ a small voice remembered.)

"I need a minute to wake up before I can transform and fix it," she said, ignoring his reaction to her curses. "Your apartment is enormous," she noted, looking upwards at the distant ceiling, and around at the dark pristine bookshelves and the second floor walkway where it wrapped around a corner and hid his bathroom from the rest of the room. When her eyes fell on his two vertical windows, where the sparkling city sloped downward toward the Eiffel Tower and the sky was breaking periwinkle with the promise of day, she whistled. "This place is an absolute dream. I guess those scissors weren't from the dollar store after all."

Adrien flushed. "I know, it's overkill."

"I'll say. This is the most expensive looking studio apartment I've ever been in!"

"Right, about that…"

 _I'm Adrien, your long time friend from school. We've known each other five years and apparently you're also Ladybug, which is blowing my damn mind but is strangely unsurprising at the same time. And I've always loved you and somehow... now I love you more? I didn't think that was possible but here we are. I love you so much it physically hurts. I need you in my life. As Ladybug, as Marinette, as this oddly compelling mix of both that you apparently have been the whole time. I need_ _ㅡ_

"Chat, I'm really sorry if I said or did anything weird last night."

 _What?_

"I was really disoriented and I kind of…" Her shoulders hunched and she pulled the sheets up to cover her chest, even though he couldn't see her from here at all. "I dreamt that you were this guy that I'm… sorta in love with," she blurted quickly. "And I know I talk in my sleep, so I'm willing to bet I said some stuff that was just, weird," she finished. "If I did, I'm sorry."

Adrien sat up from his place among the pillows, simultaneously elated and heartbroken. "Adrien?" he asked, and she tensed up. Nino was always hinting that Marinette was interested, but he had no idea she was in _love_ with him. So last night when she said it he'd allowed himself to think that maybe, just maybe, it had been the Ladybug in her, talking about Chat. "Yeah, you... called me Adrien and said you loved me."

"Oh, kitty…" She must have picked up the heartbreak in his voice.

It was _definitely_ heartbreak that she was picking up on. "He must be great. A real catch. Give him my regards, won't you?"

"Please don't do that, Chat."

"I thought last night that you were finally opening up to me. I thought I…" He squeezed his eyes shut. It was too early in the morning for tears. How could he be so stupid? She didn't love Chat, she loved _Adrien_. Stupid, perfect, flawless Adrien. "I thought I had a chance, you know?"

" _Chat."_ His reaction was hurting her, and he saw when she started angling her head toward him that she was toying with the idea of turning around and looking at him.

"Plagg," he yelled, waking the lazy kwami across the room. "Transform me."

After the blinding green light receded from the walls, Marinette spun to face him and moved to sit on the edge of the bed and look up at Chat where he now stood, dragging the sheets along with her. "You're not being fair. I can't control who I love," she defended. "You should know that better than anyone. I mean, because I... I love you, too. And you're the craziest psycho I've ever met," she added haughtily, almost as an afterthought served to soften the blow of that monumental confession.

This was enough to give Adrien pause in his downward spiral. "Wait. You _do_ love me?"

Marinette threw her hands up and made a strangled sound, then catching the sheet at the last second before it slipped off. "Of course I do! It's not _obvious?_ I leapt in front of an arrow for you, designed by Hawkmoth to take out people's most important loved ones. I _love_ you. But..."

Adrien watched her face morph from determination into sadness, and tried to follow. This was getting more confusing by the minute. "But you love Adrien more?" he guessed.

Marinette pressed her lips together, and wouldn't answer that. "I loved him first," she evaded. "And I don't think I could ever be with you if I was still in love with someone else, which is why I've tried never to lead you on. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

Tapping his chin, Adrien considered her quandary and his options. This was far less upsetting than he'd previously assumed. Potentially, he could come clean right now and solve her dilemma. But then, he would never know for sure if she loved him for _him_ or if she just loved the idea of him, would he?

After all, Chat Noir was his very essence; his mask was every unsmiled smile, every bitten-back laugh, every swallowed snarl, every strangled cry, _every_ repressed emotion that Adrien Agreste was forced to hide as he went about his life. In a very literal sense, he _was_ Chat Noir. Sure, it was false to imply that Chat was his true personality. Chat was more like a highly concentrated, unfiltered dose of Adrien. But that unfiltered dose was too much for some people. He knew Chat often rubbed people the wrong way and he knew not everyone found Chat funny and he knew that people saw Chat as somewhat dramatic. But, concentrated or not, all those emotions were his. They came from him. And if Marinette _(if Ladybug)_ truly loved Adrien more than she loved Chat, who was basically the barest expression of his soul, he wasn't sure he could live with that.

"So you're saying," he said sadly, "that if you had to choose between Adrien and me, you would choose Adrien." _Do you really prefer the watered down version of me?_

"You're _really_ not being fair," Marinette whispered.

"And you're being evasive."

"Fine, I don't know! Happy?"

"Ah, so you're on the fence then?" He broke into a shy smile, surprised at her answer and finally regaining a bit of the elation he had felt last night. "That's a different story altogether, my fair lady. It means I _do_ have a chance."

"You're insufferable," she moaned, burying her face in her good hand.

"But you love me," he purred, and knelt in front of her to pull her hand from her face. "And I love you."

"It's not that simple, Chat."

He brushed his thumb across her chin, wishing that it was. "I know. But it could be."

"How?"

He brushed her nose with his, and she was either too shocked or too tired to object. "I've loved you from the day we met and I think I can get you to choose me. After all, I love a good challenge..."

A gust of air escaped Marinette's throat then, and she blinked at him in frustration. "For the life of me I do not understand you. Aren't you _bothered_ that I just told you I'm in love with someone else?"

He thought carefully on his answer. "No," he finally said. "I don't care who you love, as long as I'm your number one."

This amused her. "Fine then, you crazy alleycat. You know what? You got me. Fine. Fine! You officially have my permission to try and woo me."

"Really?"

He knew his eyes must be sparkling, because she bit back a laugh. "What's your first move gonna be?"

"This," he smiled, and leaned in to kiss her.

Marinette gasped. For all her playful teasing, she had clearly not been expecting it. But after a moment she relaxed, moving her hand to his cheek as he pressed his lips to hers.

If it had been Adrien kissing her, he might have left it at that: a gentlemanly peck. But this was Chat, and he had to show her that Chat brought something to the table that Adrien _never_ would. So he deepened the kiss, tilting her head until she gave him access, hearing the mattress creak below her in some distant and unimportant part of his brain. As he teased the tip of her tongue with his own she shuddered, and when after nearly a minute he pulled back she caught his lip in her teeth, silently begging him not to go. He caught her eye with the barest smirk then, taking note of her pleasant distress. She promptly came to herself and released his lip, flushing all the way up from the base of her neck.

Adrien stood again, tail springing to life behind him and ears twitching with delight. "Bet Adrien never kissed you like that," he said smugly.

This did not have the effect he was going for. Her dreamy expression wilted, and she sighed. "Adrien would never kiss me."

 _What?!_

"How do you know?" he demanded. "Have you ever even asked him?"

"Well… No, but Iㅡ"

"Let me make this clear," he said, "princess," and she perked up at the unexpected usage of Chat's old nickname for her. "There is no doubt in my mind that if you ever asked this Adrien guy to go out with you, he would say yes in a heartbeat. Nuh-uh," he interrupted when it was clear she wanted to argue. "I'm serious. He would say yes, Marinette. But, since you've never asked, I'm going to assume you won't be asking any time soon. So until then, I'll be doing my best to steal your heart from him. Hope that's okay." On that note he gave her a sloppy wink, which drove her to stand and shove him playfully with her good arm.

"I don't get you," she laughed, trying to size him up but clearly failing. "But I don't see how it can hurt, if the situation truly doesn't bother you."

As she transformed back to heal herself he watched with awe, and when he left her on her own apartment's balcony later that morning it was with a torn heart. Because no matter what he said, the situation did bother him. That was why he hadn't told her he was Adrien in the first place. Because it _bothered_ him that all the while when Chat had been trying to court Ladybug, Marinette had been falling in love with the part of himself he hated most. And if he was honest with himself, he was sure that if (more like when) Marinette knew what he was doing and how he was deceiving her, it would bother her even more.

* * *

...

Ooo a dark ending to an otherwise pretty fluffy-ass fic.

Few notes. You wouldn't know it from my writing track record, but marichat is _far and away_ my favorite corner of the square. The problem is… I cannot get into reading (and find it almost impossible to write) baseless fanfiction. What I mean by baseless is skipping any kind of setup/exposition to get straight to a juicy trope. Enter: 95% of marichat fics. "Chat didn't know how this all started but suddenly he was visiting Marinette erryday" is such a cop out. Nothing against writers who write that way, because I know sometimes you just wanna write the good bits and don't feel like leading up to it properly. Me? I can't read it because it feels so fake and forced and unrelatable, and I can't write it because I will only write things that further my writing abilities and that Would Not. But again, nothing against people who like it or write it. I honestly wish I could get into it, because I Fucking Love Marichat, but there's absolutely no way to write a believable marichat story without extensive setup. I suppose that's why I don't write it very much. :(

So this one-shot was supposed to be the all-important setup for a multichapter marichat story. However, I only had this chapter and the last chapter actually planned out, and didn't realize till I'd finished this first one just how threadbare the rest of my plan was. So I just sorta put it on the backburner and it went cold before I could finish it. Luckily, it stands on its own rather well! Kinda cliff-hangery but I am _sure_ you guys can figure out what happens from here.

(Chat Noir moves to Russia and Marinette quits the fashion biz to become a full-time clockmaker.)

I kid, I kid. I'm gonna spoil the rest of the story for you just cause I can, of course! Fuck yeah there are no rules in fanfiction! Wubalubadubdub!

So there were supposed to be a few lighthearted chapters of Chat trying to woo Marinette. His hopes are high at first, but he gets increasingly worried that he's not getting anywhere. Then, after a few chapters of this, something happens between them that makes him question the wisdom of this plan, and he realizes (A) that Marinette definitely still loves Adrien, and (B) if he hasn't been able to win her over as Chat by now he never will, and that means that when she inevitably finds out Adrien is Chat, in all likelihood it will negatively affect her feelings for him. So he furiously backpedals. Decides that he needs to show her Adrien can still be the 'Adrien' she fell in love with before coming clean.

So he asks her on a date as Adrien. He's expecting her to say yes, but still, the Chat in him is more than a little brokenhearted when she does. They go on the date. Adrien tries to act the way he thinks Marinette likesㅡas 'Adrien-y' as possible, as opposed to 'Chat-y.' To sort of re-win her over before telling her the truth. Yes I know he's a fucking idiot haha. (The whole story is from Adrien's perspective but you would see Marinette being a little weirded out in the date scene by the formal/flawless show Adrien is putting on for her. She knows Adrien and would know he is acting strange, she just wouldn't understand why yet.) Adrien thinks the date is going well, so he invites her up onto the rooftop garden of the restaurant he picked out. They go up and Adrien decides to go for it. Asks her if she's interested in being his girlfriend. (Maybe should have come clean first, but he's not making the best decisions right now lmao.)

Marinette is shocked. Like. 'Oh. Oh boy… Adrien, I… honestly, I've been in love with you since just right after we met. So in a way this is just the best thing ever for me. But also, it's kind of out of nowhere, y'know? And to be honest, I've kind of been dating someone, and I really like him a lot. You're really great, but this other guy… I need to see where it's going. I hope you don't feel like I've led you on by agreeing to this date. I mean, I sort of just accepted automatically before I had a chance to really think about it and I thought it was rude to back out. Adrien, oh my god, please don't cry, I'm really sorry!"

Adrien is sort of crying, sort of laughing. "Chat Noir?" he says, and Marinette stops cold.

"What?"

"You're talking about Chat Noir, right?"

"How..? How did you..."

Cue Adrien revealing himself as tactlessly as possible and Marinette being so pissed off at his stupid love games that she almost throws him off the rooftop. She's irate at first, but eventually calms down when she realizes why he felt the need to do that in the first place. The uncertainty and the self-doubt and whatnot, she's very familiar with all that. Idk, you get the point.

There's gonna be one more of these little 'piece of a story' stories. (Pure Adrienette this time.) See you then…

 **[insert shameless plug for my more high-effort fic, Strange Aeons]**


	16. A 'Coming of Age' Story

A) I know everyone says this but if I was rich I would buy my friends the sickest presents ever. If you think this wealthy ray of sunshine wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on presents for his friends, you are hereby extended a cordial invitation to fucking fight me. Also, idk how trust funds work. I mean does it LOOK like I have one? Haha… Oh shit I made myself sad. : (

B) I cannot be stopped; I will continue to write Chloe as a socially-color-blind bitch with 24 karat intentions.

* * *

 **A 'Coming of Age' Story**

* * *

Despite her increasing desperation as time wears on and despite the fact that they've become good friends, Marinette doesn't get up the nerve to ask Adrien on a date until the very last day of lycee.

She's sworn to herself that she was going to do it every day for a year, and every morning she psyches herself up in the mirror, then scowls every evening in the same mirror, promising herself she'll do it tomorrow. But on the last full day of classes before graduation, she still hasn't done it. She smiles a sad smile at a disappointed Alya that morning, thinking that perhaps it was meant to turn out this way. It's not as though her chance is gone; after all, there's all of university stretching out before them. But honestly, if she hasn't been able to gather the courage to do this by now, she probably never will. And maybe that's okay. At least she won't have to live the rest of her life with the memory of Adrien telling her 'no.'

She contemplates a long happy life where they're only ever 'just friends,' and for once the idea is not so heartbreaking. The close bond they've formed in the last few years is rewarding enough on its own. Asking the universe for any more feels like testing her luck.

Near the end of the last class period (it's technically calculus, but since the day has been almost an endless party it's merely the eighth hour of an eight hour party) Adrien goes around passing out criminally expensive gift bags like candy and tearily thanks everyone for making his only three years in public school the best he could have hoped for. When he gets back to the table where Nino, Alya, and Marinette have taken up residence after relinquishing their hold on the N64, he sets his backpack on the table and pulls three unique gift bags from inside.

"Aw, bae, it's our anniversary already?" Nino jokes. "But I didn't get you anything!"

Adrien rolls his eyes and Marinette accepts one of the bags with hesitant hands. Hers is done up in pink bows and polkadots. "I was going to give these to you three later tonight but I can't wait any longer," Adrien rushes. "I just, I wanted to do something nice since you guys have been such amazing friends to me over the last three years. Yours are kinda different than the other ones I passed out though, so maybe don't open them untilㅡ"

"Oh my god," Alya gasps. "Oh my _god_. Adrien _what the shit?!_ " Nino and Marinette ogle her; she's staring into her giftbag like Adrien put a dancing baby koala in it. When she pulls out a chunky Nikon cameraㅡthe one she's been saving up to buy for two years and is still only halfway thereㅡand cradles it in her hands, she looks like maybe she's fighting back tears. "Adrien, this camera costs more than my dad's car! Youㅡyou can't just give me this!"

"I already did," he says pointedly, and then watches with barely concealed earnestness as Nino tears through his own bag with a string of expletives rolling off his tongue. "No give-backs. Now you can use that money you've been saving up for textbooks instead, or for whatever else you need for university. Seriously, guys, there's no need to make a big thing of it. You three are the best friends I've ever had." (And maybe that's a teensy bit of a lie, he thinks to himself, but none of them need to know about Ladybug). "Just let me do this for you. Nothing would make me happier."

"Um… Adrien," Marinette says, and her voice barely makes it out of her tensed-up throat. When Adrien turns in his chair to face her, the expression he wears is so bright and sunny it's a wonder her skin doesn't flashburn. "I don't understand," she squeaks. Which isn't strictly true. She _understands_ the present she's just pulled out of her bag, it's just that she's so shocked she doesn't know what to say or what to do or how to proceed from here or whether she's alive or dead. Oh, that's it. She's dead!

A blush dusts his cheeks then (though it's got nothing on Marinette's). "Oh, maybe I should explain yours," he laughs, and gently plucks the freshly opened envelope from her hands. "It's not a gift card, it's a debit card. For supplies, you know, like fabrics and tools and displays and stuff like that. It's connected to a trust fund I set up for you. And this one," he says proudly, pulling out an unassuming folded slip of paper, "is the deed to your new shop!"

On the word 'shop' Alya chokes on her own spit and nearly drops her new camera.

Adrien blushes even more furiously when Marinette still doesn't answer (she's sure she must look as windblown as the time she battled three akumas at once) but stays willfully insistent. "I know it's maybe a little overboard, but, I don't know. I got _so excited_ when you said you were going to take a break before university to set up your own shop and I hope you're not offended that I want to help."

At last she finds her voice, though it sounds as though she's trying to speak with a jinglebell lodged in her trachea. "I'm not offended," she says breathily, "but I… Adrien, I _can't_ accept this." She shies away as he tries to hand the envelope back to her, slinking into her chair. "You're incredible and I can't believe you would do this and I'm so thankful but I just absolutely _cannot accept_. It's too much!"

"I know, I know, you want to make it on your own. I _know_ that's why you wouldn't let me snag you that internship with my father, even though you wouldn't say, so that's why I did this for you instead. You want to make it on your own. I get that. I do, and I respect it so much. So what if you think of this as an investment instead of a gift? Would that be okay?"

The whole classroom is spinning around her as Marinette turns the envelope over in her hands. Does he even understand that he is handing her, on a silver platter, something she thought she would have to work for _years_ to attain? The contents of this envelope will _change her life_ if she accepts them. When she finally gathers her scattered wits enough to meet his eyes again, which are a dangerous shade of green under these fluorescent lights and wide and happy and hopeful, it occurs to her that of course he understands. That's exactly why he's doing this.

In that moment she falls in love with him all over again.

"Okay," she accepts, giddy and drunk on excitement. If possible, he lights up even more. "Okay, but you get thirty percent stock in my company in return for the investment."

"Ten percent," he haggles immediately, taken aback at the insanely high stock she's just freely handed him. An entire third is far, far too much of a brand he's sure will someday be large enough to rival _Agreste_.

"Twenty percent. Take it or leave it, Agreste."

He opens his mouth to argue some more, but the determined set of her jaw reminds him that this is Marinette he's dealing with, and if she's made up her mind then he isn't going to win. He's lucky she's accepting his gift at all. "Fine," he relents. "You've got yourself a deal, mademoiselle." To seal it, he shakes her hand with a satirical level of formality. She barely makes it through the age-old gesture of new partnership without screaming her delight for the whole city to hear.

Alya leans away toward Nino, face askance at this fabulous new development. "What the fuck just happened?" she whispers.

"I think they just became business partners," Nino whispers back, and pokes a mysterious button on his new soundboard to see what it does.

Everything makes sense when on the steps outside school, Marinette overhears Chloe loudly and pointedly (almost like she _wants_ Marinette to hear) telling Sabrina about Adrien's acceptance letter.

"To _Harvard_ ," Chloe yaks, and needlessly tacks on with even more transparent emphasis, "which is in _America_."

For a second, the whole world slopes at a dangerous angle and Marinette starts slipping down it into the open void of space.

Alya has to catch Marinette as she trips down the next step, and then sit with her right there on the stairs as she begins to hyperventilate, petting Mari's hair, freaking out because she has no idea why Marinette is freaking out.

And make no mistake, Marinette is _Freaking. Out._ Now it makes sense, why he went all out with these presents! Because they aren't just graduation presents. They're goodbye presents. And as okay as Marinette was this morning about relinquishing the idea of dating him, she is not even in the same _dimension_ as being ready to part ways with him. So when she looks up and sees him below waving goodbye to Nino and sliding into that familiar black car, she springs to her feet and flies down the stairs, leaving behind a thoroughly bewildered Alya.

"Wait!" she shouts, "Adrien, wait!" She's running too fast and so she careens full-speed into the closed car door before backing up to yank it open. "Will you go on a date with me?" she blurts, registering his surprise at her sudden reappearance but unable to do anything less than blurt out the question that's been burning her tongue for three long years, in one breath, one pitch, full-volume.

Unclicked, his seat belt slides back out of his hand.

"I always meant to ask you but I was too afraid of what you might say and I know my timing is terrible and it's a little late for this but please," she begs, "just one date. Just once before you go."

Adrien blinks up at her, his face still a startled blank slate. "Go where?"

"To America," she says, and to her embarrassment a tear has formed in the corner of her eye. "I know you got accepted to Harvard."

Understanding creeps up on him. He leans to the side, peering around Marinette's curled hair until he can see Chloe standing on the bottom step in front of the school, giggling into one hand and giving him a bold thumbs up with the other. He furrows his eyebrows at her, then exchanges a wordless glance with the driver and climbs back out of the car, shutting the door behind him. Marinette's shyness finally catches up with her veracity, and she backs away from him so fast she almost falls, watching with horrified curiosity as the car drives away without its passenger.

"Marinette," he says gently, "I'm not going to America."

Her stomach takes a nose dive into the sidewalk. "W-what? Butㅡbut I… _Chloe_."

Adrien touches her arm as she turns to glare at the girl in question, trying to keep her attention on the more important matter. "My father forced me to apply, and I did get accepted, but I'm not going. I never intended to. Chloe thinks she's helping," he adds with a sigh, giving his oldest friend a disparaging look over the top of Marinette's head. Chloe flashes him another shameless toothy grin and saunters away with Sabrina, swaying her hips all the way.

"O-okay," Marinette says quietly, and her voice hits an octave unmatchable even by mice. _Then if you want to forget everything that just happened I hope we can still be friends_. At least, that's what her brain tries to say. She tries to say that, honestly, she does. But her adrenaline is still pumping wildly through her bloodstream, which means Ladybug is at the reigns. So what she actually says is this: "Is that a yes to the date?"

Adrien bites his lip. "Well, since I'm staying right here in Paris, it would be cool if… you know, if we could go on more than one."

On the steps outside the school, Nino has just joined Alya, and together they watch as Adrien and Marinette blush all over each other like it's a 'coming of age' story and they have a front seat and popcorn. The two in question briefly argue over something and then Adrien apparently wins because he takes Marinette's backpack from her, slinging it over one shoulder. Marinette looks up at Alya and Nino and waves, glee pouring off of her like sparkles of sunshine off the rolling surface of the sea. "Adrien and I are going for coffee!" she shouts to them. "We'll see you at the party later, okay?"

"Yeah, okay!" Nino laughs, then nudges Alya to wave back, who has fallen catatonic. She lurches to life, waving weakly with one hand.

"What the fuck just happened?" she asks Nino, her mouth falling open in shock when a ways down the road she sees Marinette boldly thread her fingers into Adrien's.

"I think they just started dating," Nino replies, then whips out his phone to continue his game of tetris.

* * *

...

That's the end of the self-contained bit. But since life is short and the universe is doomed to eventual heat death, I'm gonna go ahead and spoil the rest of the would-have-been, could-have-been story for you! Fuck yeah no rules and nothing matters!

This story was supposed to go like this. Adrien and Mari are dating, and then they both find out each other's identities, but don't know that the other knows. Mari gets sad because she assumes if Adrien is dating Mari, then he must have fallen out of love with Ladybug. Her questionable plan of action is then to aggressively flirt with Chat as LB until he re-falls for her. BAD PLAN, MARINETTE, because unbeknownst to you, _Chat knows you're Marinette._ Do you see where this is going? Hahaha. So then ADRIEN gets sad because he thinks Marinette is falling out of love with Adrien in favor of Chat. HIS plan of action is then to court Marinette as Adrien as aggressively as possibleㅡy'know, flowers, chocolates, the worksㅡwhile he tries to figure out what the hell is going on with her. This was supposed to be a slow burn fic that I'll just never have the time or motivation to finish when I have more exciting projects to work on, and would have culminated in some sort of breaking point where Chat and Lady end up making out. They both think the other is cheating on them, only to find out by accident or something that nope, they both know actually, and then they feel fucking _dumb_. Or something. Idk, that's why I never finished this lol. But here, have two deleted scenes to make up for it.

...

 **Deleted scene #1:** Marinette finds out

...

"So I'm seeing someone," Chat says, and Marinette's so surprised by the mere fact of it that she doesn't think about the odd coincidence that he's just said exactly what _she_ was going to say. She thought he was in love with her. With Ladybug. "I know I can't tell you her name," he goes on, unaware of her confusion. "But I just wanted you to know, that I... I'm in love with her. And I'm really happy, y'know?" He gifts her with a blissful, dazzling smile that blinds her and, for a split second of insanity, she hates this unnamed girl more than she's ever hated anything.

And then he says it. He says the sentence that changes everything.

He says, "Last night she tried to kill me over a game of monopoly. But, to be honest, I really deserved it for all the stupid train puns I made when I was buying up the railroads. Hey Ladybug?" He waves his hand in front of her unresponsive face. "You feeling okay?"

"O-oh yeah," she lied, waving him off with feigned nonchalance. "I'm fine, I just have a headache, that's all.

"Bummer," he says with genuine sympathy, and then rises deftly to his feet. "Maybe we should call it a night? I'm going to a morning matinee at the little theater down on Fontaine anyway so I should probably get some sleep."

"Yeah, me too," she breathes, then chokes. "About sleep, I mean! I mean I should get some sleep too!"

But when he leaves, Marinette stays.

And cries.

And cries, and cries, and cries, until she can scarcely draw in a breath without shaking.

Because Chat is Adrien and Adrien is Chat and if Adrien has fallen in love with Marinette then that means that Chat has fallen _out of love_ with Ladybug. And Chat is Adrien, and Marinette is Ladybug so... ad infinitum.

Even when she finally plucks up the willpower to get herself home, Marinette stays up half the night crying, trying to think of one single way this doesn't spell disaster for their relationship. But the morning eventually dawns and then she sees him, waiting for her outside the downtown theatre-in-the-round with their tickets in hand, leaning against the wall with one foot propped up and looking for all the world like he just fell out of a centerfold into her reality. She watches his affection wash over him like daybreak when he catches sight of her, and feels her broken heart starting to mend. That single way she was searching for hits her. There's a simple solution, here. All she has to do to fix this is get Chat Noir to fall in love with Ladybug all over again!

Shouldn't be too hard, right? After all, she's done it once before without even trying. She's sure she can do it again if she pulls out all the stops.

...

 **Deleted Scene #2:** Adrien finds out

...

When it happens, they're alone in her new shop, and it's Cleaning Day.

Twice a week for the last month they've come here together to throw away abandoned furniture and tear up old linoleum and rewire the lighting and scrub down the windows and whatever else this musty old first-floor hole-in-the-wall requires of them. It's small, and it's old, and when Adrien first brought her here he laced the visit with profuse apologies about the state of it. He paid for it out of his own savings, after all, and he isn't the wealthiest man alive. That is, until Marinette took him by the shoulders and he saw the happy tears in her eyes. With the peeling paint as a frame for her lovely face she told him, " _I love it,"_ with such passion that he was struck by the impression that really, it was _him_ that she loved. The impression turned out to be right when, later on that afternoon, Marinette confessed to having been in love with him since the day they met.

Boy, how he wasted his time.

Today the goal is to repaint the walls. They've just come from a hardware store and as Adrien carries in all the cans of paint from the car, Marinette slips into the bathroom to change out of her sundress and into something more suitable for splashing paint all over the place. They switch places when she comes out, although Adrien lingers for a moment at the bathroom door with his change of clothes in hand to look back at her. The cute tank top she wears is decorated with the phases of the moon, and she's _so cute, oh my god,_ and on top of that the jean shorts she's wearing turn her flawless legs into actual visual weapons. He takes a moment in the open doorway to lament this fact and wonder why in the _hell_ she never wears shorts.

And then he sees it. He sees the mark that changes everything.

There on the back of her thigh, just below the edge of her shorts (yes he was looking there, how could he not look, her back is to him and she's bending over with a screwdriver to open all the cans) is a little brown birthmark in the loose shape of a clover. In his shock, Adrien's hand slips off the doorjamb and he smacks his head on the wall. Marinette straightens and gives him a worried glance, then sees the blush creeping up his neck and into his cheeks and realizes that he's been staring at her.

"Adrien," she chides, albeit halfheartedly. Because honestly, she was kind of hoping he would stare when she packed these shorts earlier. But she wasn't trying to give him a concussion, though.

"Sorry!" he squeaks. "It's just that youㅡ And Iㅡ I'm just gonnaㅡ" He trips into the bathroom and slams the door shut between them. " _Oh my god,"_ he hisses into the sink, sure for a second that he's going to throw up the gelato they ate earlier.

He's been in love with Ladybug for three long years, and when a boy is in love with a girl he hardly knows he'll do anything to feel closer to her. It isn't his fault that he retains all the information she lets leak about her personal life like an unwitting sponge. He's never been consciously trying to uncover her identity. Quite the opposite, actually. He respects her wishes. That's why he eventually gave up on pursuing her in the first place. It was never going to work if they didn't know each other's identities. But still, he can't help the way her words stick in his subconscious like bugs in honey. Because even though his brain has moved on and his heart has latched onto Marinette, a deep, unshakeable part of him has always held out. It was this part of him that stowed away the knowledge for future reference when Ladybug mentioned offhand one da that she had an ironic birthmark on the back of her left thigh.

" _Ironic?" he laughed. "How can a birthmark be ironic?"_

 _Ladybug wrinkled her nose and bit back a laugh. "Because it's shaped like a clover, that's how."_

 _Chat laughed and laughed at that. "I knew it!" he exclaimed. "My lady has been lucky since birth! I told you it's got nothing to do with your miraculous," he purred, and she ducked out from under his arm._

" _Flatter me all you want," she sassed. "I'm not showing you."_

Adrien splashes water on his face and then steadies himself on the sink, staring into his own eyes in the mirror. Really, the odds that two people in Paris, France have a clover shaped birthmark in the exact same spot are so astronomically obscure that he can't bring himself to entertain it, not even for a second. Which means only one thing. Marinette is Ladybug.

Okay, two things. It also means that Ladybug is Marinette.

Which means Ladybug has been in love with him for as long as he's been in love with her and he's _dating her._ He starts to laugh, then claps his hands over his mouth to dampen the sound as he quickly loses control. But he can't help it. It's so fucking funny. This _whole time_ _ㅡ_

Knock, knock.

"Adrien?" Her voice through the door is enough to startle him to life. "Are you almost finished changing? I'm not tall enough to tape off the line between the walls and ceilings and I need your help."

He changes clothes so fast he almost falls through the old drywall. And somehow, as they paint her new shop shades of pink and blue and grey, he manages to merge the two girls he loves into one. And he thinks, this is fine. This is great. All he has to do is confess to her that Adrien is Chat, and hope her love of Adrien is large enough to transfer over to the crazy cat as well. He even starts to draw up a plan. As they flick paint at each other, he imagines a date: he takes her out on a boat on the Seine, and he brings her flowers, and the stars are alight, and somehow he manages to get the words out. _I know you're Ladybug and I want you to know that I'm Chat._

His eyes flick down to the birthmark every time she turns around to dip her roller back into the paint, and he smiles. This is the best thing that has ever happened to him, and for the first time in his life, he feels like there is literally nothing that the universe could dig up to ruin this for him.

But everything is blown out of the water when later that night, the universe manages to dig up something after all. What happens is something unprecedented. Something unfathomable. Something obscene.

They're on patrol, and when Chat flirts with Ladybug (newly inspired by his tantalizing knowledge), _Ladybug flirts back._

 _..._

Sorry to leave you all high and dry like this but that IS where this ends. XD (There's more to the WIP but it all falls apart after this and that's why I never finished.)

Oh, you know what? Fuck it, we're all gonna die someday anyway. Have an excerpt from a much farther on, deleted marichat scene. *tosses up shrug-emoji-shaped shaped confetti* (Remember, they both know, but they both think they're the only one that knows.)

...

 **Deleted Scene #3:** Marichat intensifies

When he lands in front of her she nearly drops all her books.

"Chat Noir!" she finally splutters out. "Fancy seeing you here." On the rare occasion he's needed to interact with Marinette as Chat, she's always been somewhat sarcastic and sassy. Now that he knows she's Ladybug, it makes sense. But what she says next is nothing like that at all. "Are you here to carry my books like a gentleman?" she jokes, though she bats her eyelashes at him like she isn't joking at all. What is _with_ her?

"Au contraire," he purrs. "A true gentleman walks a lady home." He has no idea what he's doing here, talking to her as Chat when all the while he's been trying to hold onto her as Adrien. Is he planning to confront her about it all? He doesn't know. "May I?"

She smiles coyly at him, and there's a flash of Ladybug in her eyes that makes his heart surge in his chest. "You may."

But instead of taking the elbow she offers, he sweeps her up in his arms, drawing the attention of the pedestrians in the crosswalk nearby, and takes off across the rooftops of Paris, following the unnecessary directions that she knows he doesn't need. When he lands on her balcony and carries her inside, he considers just coming clean right here and now and demanding to know what is going through her head when she flirts with Chat as Ladybug.

She catches the serious turn of his gaze, and the playful comment dies in her throat. His eyes drag downward, and she realized he's stepping closer. Is he going to kiss her? As _Chat? Holy shit._ She swallows thickly, almost ashamed by how much the idea of it thrills her. But not ashamed enough not to tilt her face up when his thumb comes to rest under her chin, urging her to do so. Only an inch more.

 _She's really going to let me,_ he thinks incredulously.

But on the other side of the apartment, her roommate speaks up and they fly apart.

"Marinette, is that you? I'm going to work now, do you think you could switch the laundry for me later? Thanks!"

Marinette swears and shoves Chat toward the balcony in desperation, worried that his appearance here might compromise his identity. After all, Rachel knows all about Adrien. She rushes out of her room to bid farewell to her roommate, missing the fact that instead of leaving through the open sliding glass door, Chat Noir shuts it with himself still on the inside.

"Have a good day!" Marinette waves goodbye, and then sighs, wondering what she was thinking, letting Chat Noir take her home like that. They almost _kissed_. ( _Which, wouldn't that mean he'd think she was willing to cheat on him?)_ Oh god. This game of hers is going to ruin their relationship. She needs to come clean. She needs to tell him who she is, and that she knew who _he_ is.

She jumps out of her skin when the front door moves on its own accord, then looks behind her to see that Chat Noir is the one closing it. He didn't leave?

"Chat?" she whispers.

What is he doing? Why isn't he gone? She turns around but the moment she does he pushes her up against the door, staring down from less than a foot away with a wilder expression than she's ever seen him wear. What is he doing? If she lets this go any further he's absolutely going to think she's willing to cheat on him! What is he doing? Trying to test her, maybe? Or just caught up in the moment? Despite her misgivings, when he brings his hand to the back of her neck she's helpless to do anything else but let it happen.

Adrien watches her eyes flutter shut and for the first time since the beginning of this disaster, he's not worried about the fact that Marinette is so suddenly and inexplicably open to the idea of Chat Noir. In this moment, he just wants to know if she loves Chat enough to cheat on the boyfriend she loves so much. Suddenly, instead of heartbreaking the idea is thrilling. After all, he _is_ Chat, so why is he fighting this in the first place? The door is hard against her back and he is like an unstoppable force, slowly descending toward her until finally, finally, she breaks. She throws her arms around his neck and crashes into him, kissing him with a passion that she reserves for Adrien on their latest nights, when their past-midnight talks on her bed turn into tender words and roaming hands and heated breath.

He responds like a lit fuse, and she has no time to wonder what he thinks of her because his hands are on her, running down her sides, lingering on her hips before surging downward to lift her up onto him. She moans around his tongue when he presses her harder against the door, now with her legs wrapped around his waist. He's never been so forward before. And god help her, she can't _think_. She can't do anything but kiss him back and tangle her hands with his hair.

He ruins her hairdo with his own wandering hands, and smears her lipgloss, and bites her lip when she tries to pull back for breath, then moves to her neck when she tries to speak, drowning whatever words she tries to say with a breathy sigh.

"Oh, _Chat,_ " she breathes then, and it's like she's touched his skin with jumper cables. He lets her slide back to the ground, and she looks up at him like she knows she's done something wrong. Well, she hasn't really, but she doesn't know that yet and he kinda sorta maybe wants to ride this out for as long as he possibly can before telling her the truth. So with a dangerous grin he lifts her up again, throwing her over one shoulder like a sack of flour. "Chat!" she gasps, this time in outright indignance instead of lust.

"Yes, princess?" he hums.

"Put me down!" she hisses.

"As you wish." He drops her onto her bed, and she goes white as she realizes where he's taken her. "May I?" he asks, mimicking his earlier inquiry when he wanted to take her home.

She has no idea what he's asking permission for, but she swallows and nods up at him. _Yes_.

 _..._

I know, I'm literally satan for dangling this in front of you. I'm really off the rails now, haha, I never should have started listened to that shoulder-demon of mine. _Just publish the half-finished works you piece of shit,_ she said. _Wash your hands of them,_ she said. Well, look at me now. I've gone mad with power. Haha. Anyway, that's the last of the mutilated WIPS. For now… Good riddance lmfao, now I can stop feeling guilty every damn time I scroll past them. Eyyy.

The next one-shot will be a return to your regularly scheduled programming with a rewritten scene of the Vulpina episode. O SHIT WADDUP!


	17. Smoke and Mirrors

A 'deleted/alternate scene' of sorts from the Vulpina episode. They really missed an opportunity for 'illusion' symbolism in that episode, if you ask me. with that fuckin door scene. UMPH (that's the sound of me slamming my head against my door just thinking about that scene lmfao).

* * *

 **Smoke and Mirrors**

* * *

Panic. That's what this was. Pure, unadulterated panic. There was no mistaking the cheap inflations of her lungs while the never oxygen itself seemed to reach her brain. And it didn't matter that Chat's calm steady voice was ringing in her left ear and that he was still hanging onto control where hers had shattered. She didn't hear what Chat was saying because some hundred meters ahead and above, Vulpina stood on a horizontal beam, dangling the love of her life by the arm over a heart-stopping void.

Marinette screamed at the enemy; some sort of demand or plea, maybe. She didn't know, and anyway Vulpina only laughed.

 _Lila_ laughed.

Even from here she could see the fear on Adrien's face and she wracked her brain for her next move, the move that would save his life. She was a hero, god dammit, and she would save him no matter the cost. So when the word " _miraculous"_ penetrated her terror from above, that logical part of her brain that had kept her rooted in place took control of her limbs. There was no way she'd be able to make it there in time if Vulpina dropped him, that much was a cold hard certainty. He was too far and the drop too short. Just short enough to ensure she'd never make it. Just high enough to ensure that he wouldn't survive.

Marinette's hands were on her earrings before she'd even processed Hawkmoth's tired old demand through his newest mouthpiece. Nothing was worth Adrien's death. She didn't care if Hawkmoth took over the entire universe, if only Adrien lived.

" _Ladybug!"_ Reality crashed back into her as someone's hands closed around her wrists, yanking them away from her ears before she'd managed to procure the offering that would save Adrien. For a brief, disorienting moment, she was sure Vulpina had somehow sent one of her illusions down to accost her. But no, an illusion wouldn't have been able to touch her. Looking down, she saw the hands were black with leather.

"Chat, _let me go!_ " His betrayal wouldn't sway her. "Let go of me _now!_ I have to save him!"

"No, listen to me!" he hissed, stepping between her and the tower, obscuring the dangling Adrien from her view entirely. Her heart stopped.

"Get off!" she shouted, and shoved him away. It succeeded, but only momentarily, and only because the sheer force of her determination startled him. He had to lunge for her hands again as they went to her earrings. The icy look she gave him when he stopped her from removing them a second time was enough to flatten his cat ears to his head.

"It's not real," he insisted for the tenth time, though he still wasn't sure she was hearing him. "You _have_ to calm down. What's gotten into you?" Never in all their time together had he seen her act like this, and honestly, she was scaring him. There'd been civilians in danger before and she was always able to keep her cool. Even when she did panic, she had always trusted him as the voice of reason when she lost her footing. But now, she was straight up losing it over an illusion of a person she didn't even know. What in the hell was going on? This wasn't right. It wasn't like her.

"So you're not giving the miraculous up after all?" Vulpina's lilting drawl was somehow both lazy and cutting at the same time. Like she had no interest in the proceedings, despite holding all the power.

"Yes, I will!" Ladybug shouted, at the same time that Chat shouted, "No, we won't!"

Far above, Vulpina rolled her eyes at Hawkmoth's increasing telepathic demands. "This is taking too long," she said to her illusory benefactor. "Look at that cat, he's not falling for it at all. I'm gonna cut my losses and think up something else. Oi, lovebirds!" she called down at the grappling pair of heroes. "Catch him if you can!"

The illusion of Adrien Agreste fell.

A ragged gasp tore its way from Marinette's throat and she lunged forward, even though she knew, she _knew_ , she wouldn't get there in time. He was too far. And it didn't matter because the second she lunged, two strong arms closed around her waist and wrenched her back. For an eternal second, Adrien flitted in and out of sight between wrought-iron beams. Then, writhing with all her might against Chat Noir, she lost track of him. The world could have ended in rubble and flame right then and there and she'd not have noticed. She screamed and raged and fought and _fought_ against Chat, but he had turned into some sort of marble statue and she might as well have been fighting against arms carved of stone for all the good her blind flailing did her. She couldn't see; she couldn't hear. Reality shredded into reams of static. Adrien was gone.

It was all the _real_ Adrien could do to keep his hold on her. He watched as the copy of himself shattered into refracted light against the pavement, and waited for Ladybug to noticeㅡto _realize_ that it was all a lie. But she went on in uninterrupted agony. She didn't see. Cackling madly, Vulpina vaulted away, and he couldn't go after her because Ladybug was in such a state he was afraid to even relax his grip. After a full minute of this, he realized this was going downhill far faster than it was coming back up again, so he too decided to cut his losses. They were not defeating Vulpina like this.

Just as he was about to try talking to her again, she surprised him by collapsing. He barely adjusted his hold in time to keep her from falling hard onto her knees on the cement. Her breathing turned strange, and with a start he realized she was sobbing.

"Ladybug," he worried, and was surprised at how broken his own voice sounded. Misunderstanding or not, the strength of her reaction to this was straight up killing him.

"Let me g-go," she cried, her voice a scarce whisper. "Please, Chat, justㅡ just le-et me g-go."

Despite her request, she made no protest at all when instead of releasing her he moved around to the front side of her to pick her up in one smooth motion. Now that Vulpina was gone, a small crowd had begun to gather. It was time they too were gone from this place. Ladybug no longer struggled against him; at his direction she wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, and cried on his shoulder as he carried them far, far away from the city square.

It was several minutes before he stopped again, choosing the lofty open belfry of a church, startling a flock of roosting pigeons as he made his landing and slipped from the warm sunshine into the shadow of the enormous bronze bell. "Ladybug," he tried as soon as he set her back onto her own wobbly feet. "Please," he begged, taking her face in his hands in desperation. No matter what he said, she wasn't hearing him. If only she'd _seen_ the illusion dissolve. "You have to calm down."

"You don't understand," she coughed, choking on her own voice. "That boy was myㅡI _knew_ him _,_ Chat _._ I loved him _."_

"You… What? Wait, what?"

Marinette went on, unhearing. Lost to the world. "He's dead," she gasped. "He's reallyㅡ"

"He's not dead!" A ray of sun that cut through the taut pulley cables hit her squarely in the face, carving her anguish into beautiful golden canyons. _She loves me? She knows_ _me. She loves me, and… and she still thinks I'm dead. And she loves me._ "Bug," he insisted, almost as elated as he was confused. "It wasn't real."

"You don't know that," she cried. "You don't know."

"Yes, I do. I really, really do."

"Youㅡyou stopped me. I could have saved him if I'd just…"

"I had to," Adrien reeled. He shouldn't be defending himself; he'd done nothing wrong. "Ladybug, that was not the real Adrien."

"You don't know!" Marinette shouted, realizing that his hands were still on her face and trying once again to push him away. She stumbled backwards and one foot stepped off the edge of the belfry into the yawning chasm between them and the bustling city street below. Chat's quick hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her from falling.

"It's okay, Ladybug. Really. Look at me," he said, and she hated that he sounded so calm. How could he stay so cool-headed when the world had come to a bitter, bloody end? "Bug," he pressed, hands coming to rest once again gently on her cheeks. Despite everything, the motion soothed her broken heart by the smallest degree. Here she'd been nothing but chaotic and violent with him and he was still trying to comfort her. She stared at his chest, suddenly too ashamed by her behavior to look him in the eye. It wasn't Chat's fault Adrien wasㅡit wasn't Chat's fault. All he'd done was keep her from losing her miraculous in the process. "Look at me," he urged, more insistently. "Please, I can't take any more of this. You're breaking my heart. Just… look at me, and you'll understand, okay?"

Something in his voice allowed no room for argument. An unshakeable determination. A quiet plea. Marinette dragged her weary eyes upward, pulled toward the sound like a magnet. His eyes were soft and understanding, and for the life of her she couldn't reconcile those kind eyes with the look of fierce resolve taking over his face and squaring his shoulders. His thumbs brushed quickly at her tear-streaked cheeks before his hands left her face completely, moving toward his own. What was he...?

Marinette stepped back reactively as his fingertips brushed the bottom edge of his mask. _What was he doing?_

Adrien paused as the back of her heel brushed the edge of the landing once more, eyes flitting toward the perilous drop behind her. But she held her footing. She'd regained some measure of control over her body, and she was using it to stare at him like he'd lost his mind between one moment and the next. So, he'd finally gotten her attention.

And wasn't that just terrifying.

Assured she wasn't going to fall, Adrien resumed what he was doing. The magic that adhered his mask to his face fizzled and disconnected as he hooked his thumbs up underneath the edges, and slowlyㅡso slowlyㅡthe mask that hid his identity from the world came away from his skin. Marinette stood frozen in place as reality unfolded itself before her eyes, and found that for all her screaming earlier, her voice now was gone. The flock of pigeons returned, soaring through the open belfry in a whirlwind gust, parting around them and never landing for fear of the two intruders standing silent in their roost.

"You…" Marinette took a tentative step toward him. Toward _Adrien_. He pushed his hair away from his face, cheeks tinted rose, eyes wide with fear and excitement. "Another trick," she said, her words hollow. That was it, somehow Vulpina had kidnapped Chat Noir and replaced him with yet another of her endless illusions.

"No," he said, exasperated. "I'm _not_ ㅡ I'm real, Ladybug. Ask me anything. Test me."

But instead of asking him anything, he was met with the curiosity of Ladybug shakily removing her glove. He sucked in his breath as she moved toward him, then with one trembling, gloveless hand, felt for his pulse at the top of his neck.

The hardest moment in Marinette's life until now had been Adrien's death. She really didn't think it would ever get harder than that. But now… Oh god. Everything was different, wasn't it? She tore her eyes from the place on his neck where she felt the unmistakable rhythm of a blood pumping through his veins, up toward Chat Noir's naked face. Adrien's face, angled down at her with patience and compassion. Of course he couldn't be an illusion because he had touched her. Held her. Carried her...

He was _real_.

Relief hit her so hard and so fast that she choked on it, something between a laugh and a cry escaping her throat as she threw her arms around his neck again, this time with a crushing, desperate ferocity. "It's really you." The leather of his costume stuck to her face, hot in the light of the sinking sun, and it was _so strange_ and so surreal but she didn't care. He was alive.

"Yeah," he breathed, arms coming to rest at her back. He rested his cheek on the top of her head for some sort of tie to the earth, because he was reeling. Just reeling. Ladybug knew him and loved him and somehow nothing else mattered right nowㅡnot Vulpina, not Hawkmoth, not Paris, not anything outside the belfry where she was clinging to him like he'd come back from the dead. "You know me," he said softly after a long, tender minute. That was the safest question to start with, right?

Marinette pulled back, just a few inches, coming back to herself. Now that the grief was evaporating, it was replaced by a rising panic of an entirely different kind than she'd experienced at the base of the tower. Oh, how could she have been so stupid? Feeling her stiffen and seeing the anxiety in her eyes, Adrien moved his hands to her shoulders.

"Ladybug, please. I have to know. No one's ever..." His eyes softened even further, if possible, and a look of extreme wistfulness crossed his face, sending Marinette's heart straight into the roof of her mouth. "No one's cared that much about me since my mother died," he said, dropping his voice to the barest whisper. "I _have_ to know who you are." _Who it is that loves me like that._

When his fingers brushed the base of her mask, she closed her eyes in a fit of embarrassment. But she didn't flinch or pull away. She wouldn't deny him this. Not after she'd accidentally forced his hand with her misguided hysteria. Fair was fair.

Adrien watched her quietly come to the decision to let him remove her mask with intense fascination. Who _was_ this girl who loved him so dearly? This girl who was Ladybug. This girl who'd captured his heart so throughly from the beginning, yet somehow slipped his notice in the civilian sphere of his life. If she didn't want him to know then the magic securing her mask to her face would repel him with complete efficiency. But when he pushed his index finger underneath, it came away as easily as had his own. And just like that, it was off.

The warm summer wind felt weird on the skin around her eyelids. Marinette took a deep, shuddering, steadying breath before opening her eyes. When she did, then first thing she saw was Adrien's hand clutching both their masks in a tight fist. It took all the willpower in her arsenal to bring herself to look back into his eyes, now that he knew who she was. Now that he knew who was so stupid-in-love with him that she nearly lost her miraculous over it. Shock and elation fought for control over his faceㅡat least, that's what it looked like to her. Honestly, it was hard to tell when her own heart was beating so fast it was verging on cardiac arrest. The silence stretched on, and somewhere in the distance the flock of pigeons came to rest on a slanted rooftop, painting the red bricks there gray and purple.

"Say something?" She curled her arms around her stomach, feeling like the anxiety might swallow her whole.

"I-I'm sorry," Adrien laughed, pushing his hair away from his face as he gazed at her unabashedly, trying to sort the hurricane of emotion into more manageable piles. "I don't know what to say. I'm justㅡI'm so happy?" That was definitely the predominate emotion, presiding over all the others like a brand new sun. "This is the best day of my life."

Marinette could feel her face heating up quicker than if he'd lit it on fire. So she was right about the look on his face after all. It was elation. He laughed again, a nervous giggle that did dangerous things to her heart. It had been less than ten minutes since he 'died' and now he was giggling like a child on Christmas.

(There'd been a time when she swung too far with her yoyo and stopped too fast, resulting in genuine whiplash that put her out of commission for a full two hours of battle. This felt something like that.)

"Do you really mean that?" She could _hear_ the blush coloring her voice.

Lucky for her, Adrien was blushing too. That nervous tick of his appeared, and she _marvelled_ when she saw both Chat and Adrien in the motion as he rubbed shyly at the back of his neck. She'd watched them do it hundreds of times, and now she was watching them both at once.

"Well, yeah," he replied. "Marinette…" Somehow the name fell so easily from his lips, despite the spots decorating her body. It just felt right, like somehow the only thing keeping him from knowing had been a layer of magic as thin as their masks. As if some deep cavern in his mind had known all along, and all he'd done by removing her mask was to find that cavern and fill it awash with light. "Mari," he corrected, resulting in a furious doubling of her blush that got a very intense physical reaction from his stomach. "I've never said anything to you that I didn't mean with my whole heart."

Maybe he was just being kind. But it still flustered the _ever-loving shit_ out of her. "Even all theㅡ" she gestured vaguely at his costume, unable to voice the depth of her true question, "ㅡthe _Chat_ stuff?"

Adrien broke eye contact then. It was too much. Too intense. "Especially all the Chat stuff."

"O-oh." So they loved each other. Could it really be so simple? Just like that? She honestly didn't know what to do with this information and the whiplash hit her more severely than ever. "Maybe we should go find Vulpina," she suggested weakly, "and talk about this after?"

Adrien smiled at her as she turned away from him toward the edge, every corner of his heart melting in her wake. "Forgetting something, lovebug?"

The age-old nickname caught her attention a little too hard and she fumbled her yoyo, tangling it and reeling it back in before turning back toward him with something between exasperation and embarrassment. He waved her mask, then moved toward her with a smile as she realized she'd been about to leap away without it. "Whoops," she said, and it was so _Marinette_ of her and god help him, he was in trouble. He was in so much trouble. It must have shown on his face because she turned toward him more fully, eyes widening as she looked up at him. He'd meant to put her mask back on for her but now his hands were at her waist instead, pulling her closer.

It wasn't until he pressed her forehead to hers that she truly believed he wanted to kiss her. She trailed one hand up his chest, savoring the way he sighed, moving past the neckline of his suit where Chat stopped and Adrien began and coming to rest on his jaw. His half-lidded eyes fluttered shut then, and she stood on her toes to kiss him.

Their first kiss was soft, the way their lips moved together tentative and exploratory. (Much the same way she had checked for his pulse not two minutes ago.)

When she parted from him to fall back onto her heels he trailed after her, stopping just a fraction of a centimeter before making contact again, changing his mind. If he didn't stop now he'd never be able to. Sensing that it was long past time to return to business, Marinette took a deep breath and stepped back into her Ladybug shoes. But before turning away from him, she tugged their masks out of his hands. Hers she put on without thinking, trying not to blush under his unabashed stare.

His she put on with infinite more care, watching with blissful awe as Adrien became Chat again. How strange, and how perfect. But… how _strange_. Which face was the one of smoke and mirrors? Had she fallen for Adrien or for Chat Noir?

The question tumbled from her lips unbidden. "Which one is the real you?"

Adrien was so surprised that the honest answer slipped out before he could really think of anything better to say. "I don't know."

"Hmm. So then, I guess you're an illusion after all," she joked, but there rang a hint of deep sincerity in it, and Adrien couldn't help but smile.

He winked. "You too, Princess."

Marinette had to giggle at that behind her hands; she knew what he was really saying. So maybe they had both shrouded pieces of themselves behind smoke and mirrors. But that smoke had cleared nowㅡthe mirrors shatteredㅡand whaddya know? They were still here. They were still going strong. They were still in love.

(Take that, Vulpina!)


	18. How to Flirt

Hey so **I made a tumblr** where you can scream at me about stuff. Hmu at **speakswords.** There will be little drabbles posted there that are too short to really make it into this collection. In fact, I've put one up over there already!

As for this story, this was supposed to be very short and sweet (ONE PAGE _ONLY_ ) but it got out of hand. Extremely out of hand. 800% out of hand. Apparently I have absolutely no self control when it comes to these two. /SHRUG/

I sincerely hope (but highly doubt) that in the show, when the reveal does happen, they don't get together right away. Because we would be missing out on some GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES. Think about all the awkwardness and flirting and aaghhhhh please give me this. Please. PLEASE. Just, the idea of them knowing for a few months before dating is so alluring to me. Think about how close they would get in the meantime and how much more they would love each other and how more more keenly they would pine. _Think about it._

And hey, now that you're thinking about that, I have a convenient fic for you…

* * *

 **How to Flirt**

* * *

The day Adrien moved out of his childhood home was also the day he realized he didn't know how to do anything.

It caught him off guard, when it happened. The idea of escaping the shadow beneath his father's wings had tempted him for years, and he'd gotten it into his head somehow that as soon as he slipped out of the nest he could just fly away to greater heights with the wind at his back. It didn't quite work out like that. As it turned out, growing up in a mansion with a silver spoon superglued to his hand had some lasting effects that he never saw coming.

For instance, what the hell were you supposed to do with dirty clothes? Wash them, right? Sounded easy enough in theory. But, like… _how though?_ There were so many different kinds of detergents that he almost gave up and sat down on the floor of the grocery store during his first official shopping trip for his newly rented uptown flat. The first load of laundry came out splotched and ruined. Apparently the red from his jacket had decided to make friends with all his other clothes. Hoping to salvage at least some of them, he transferred them all to the dryer anyway. But at the end of the day when he tried to put one of the unruined shirts on, the cotton clung to his skin like spandex, absolutely drenched with static electricity.

"What is that?" he pouted almost inaudibly when Marinette walked in on his struggle and asked him if he'd remembered to put a dryer sheet in with the load.

With many a suppressed giggle, Marinette cancelled movie night and showed him how to clean his clothes without ruining them.

Them being partners in justice and all, he'd always leaned on her. Even now, a few months after the accidental reveal. Things were… weird, between them, but not bad. They were closer than they'd ever been before, as partners in the moonlight or as friends in the sun, and yet they were simultaneously separated by a new aching chasm that he longed to bridge. It seemed like a good idea not to rush into this too fast, since the recent revelation was incredibly confusing for the both of them. But he was having a difficult time slowing down here. They talked more. They got together more. They touched more. They leaned on each other more, mainly toward the end of their bi-nightly patrols, when they were both yawning and keen on getting home but also filled with unspoken reluctance to leave the other's side.

Yeah, he knew he should be taking this slow. She wanted that; he could tell. But, honest to god, he needed her now more than ever. Living alone was hard. And weird. The strangest things tripped him up, reminding him that despite all his efforts, he was still miles behind in certain walks of life.

So he leaned on her even more.

Marinette was a good sport. She could always tell when to make fun of him for his lack of knowledge of basic household functions, and when the subject was touchy and to just be helpful instead. He couldn't have been more grateful for that. Especially when she zipped across town at four in the morning on a Monday before work, responding to his groggy, irritated, borderline teary phone call.

In the farthest corner of the bedroom (because it was the farthest point in the house from the source of his dismay) Adrien tried to hold it together. "I don't know what's happening," he groaned into the phone, his free hand covering his other ear. "Marin _eeette_. _Help_." The shrill, intermittent beeping of his smoke alarm had been plaguing him for almost two hours, and he was sure his apartment neighbors were plotting his murder as he spoke.

"Please," Plagg wailed into the phone. "My ears are bleeding!"

Twelve minutes later when Ladybug slipped through his window and promptly grimaced and covered her ears as yet another beep filled the apartment, he could only grimace an apology for waking her at such an hour for something so stupid. She inspected the offending smoke alarm with narrowed eyes and then called forth a lucky charm. Hands still smashed over his ears, Adrien peered into her hand as the dazzling pink light faded away to reveal… batteries? Seriously?

With a soundless yawn, Marinette absentmindedly transformed out of her spots to reveal a set of barely-there pajamas, whereafter a very disgruntled and sleepy Tikki flitted away to join Plagg under the covers on Adrien's bed. Adrien watched her go jealously. He should be asleep in there…

Marinette was saying something now, but it got lost amidst yet another deafening beep. "What?" he asked quickly as it faded again, knowing all too well how soon it would be back.

"Lift me up," she repeated, pointing up at the evil alarm. "I can't reach it."

Despite the countless times and infinite different ways in which he'd held her as Ladybug, he couldn't help but feel his blood quicken in his veins as he bent down to close his arms around her bare thighs below the end of her shorts in order to heave her toward the ceiling. He turned his head to the side to avoid an extremely awkward encounter with the shorts themselves, but reddened anyway. After a moment the alarm cut off mid-beep. His ears were still ringing though as he slackened his grip, letting her slide all the way down his body until her toes touched the ground.

When he didn't immediately let go of her waist, she tilted her chin up to survey him directly, still blinking sleep from her eyes.

The urge to kiss her then was a force of nature. Resisting that urge felt like holding a cellar door closed with his bare hands as a tornado ripped the house apart above them.

Instead, he cracked a grateful smile and released her. "My ears are gonna be ringing for days. Thanks, Mari."

And, like always, she smiled back. "What on earth would you do without me?"

"That's a good question." The truth was, he'd been thinking about that question a lot lately. The answer was that he had _no fucking idea._

The day after the smoke alarm incident, Adrien invited her over for a surprise. To say thank you.

" _A surprise?"_ she said over the phone as he zoomed around his kitchen with ingredients in hand. " _I thought I told you,"_ she scolded jokingly, " _no more dead birds on my pillow, Adrien."_

On his end, Adrien was preoccupied with making sure all the bubbles of dry flour in his mixing bowl were stirred vigorously out of existence. "But dead birds mean 'I love you' in Siamese," he replied absently.

The following silence on the other line made his heart stumble flat over the next beat. He reassessed the pun, far too late. Was that too much? Too far?

After the reveal, his running flirtatious banter had flatlined. After all, she needed time and space to sort this out, as did he, and Chat's relentless flirting with Ladybug didn't exactly feel prudent in the aftermath. But it had been awhile now. They were more than partners, now, too. More than friends. They were _best_ friends. Andㅡif he was reading the road signs correctlyㅡthey were on the fast track to something far more wonderful. So he'd recently begun to pepper that Chat Noir charm back in. Nothing crazy. Just a flirt here or there. A quick wink as they separated during battle. A dazzling smile in response to her sass.

Doozy lines like the one he just said, thoughㅡhe hadn't said _anything_ like that since before. Before, when it was safe. When neither of them knew and there was nothing to lose. But now… now he had _everything_ to lose. So he opened his mouth to play it off as a joke.

Marinette beat him to it. " _Did you know that cats leave dead birds for their owners because they think they think their owners don't know how to hunt?"_ she giggled a bit late, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. " _It's because they think their owners are helpless when it comes to feeding themselves. So if we want to get technical,_ I'm _really the one who should be leaving_ you _dead birds, M. Adrien I-didn't-know-you-can't-microwave-metal Agreste."_

Breathing a sigh of relief, Adrien tucked his phone between his cheek and his shoulder to start rummaging through one of his cupboards for a pan. "Well, get ready to eat your words," he said haughtily, then after a brief pause tacked on, "and soufflé."

" _Oh god,"_ she groaned _. "Tell me you didn't."_

He did.

When she arrived at his flat two hours hours later, she sniffed the air the moment she walked in, not bothering to knock. "You did. You actually did. I better call out of work for tomorrow now," she laughed, ignoring the pouty look Adrien was giving her. She pulled out her phone and held it to her face without actually calling anyone. "Hello, yes? It's me, Marinette, and I'm about to get food poisoning, so I thought I shouldㅡhey!"

Adrien snatched her phone and held it aloft, out of her reach, delighted as always to be a full foot and a half taller than her. "I resent this distrust, you tiny little speck."

Crawling halfway up his body toward her phone with ruthless fervor, she growled at the _you're short_ jab. "I _will_ bite you. Do not test me, Adrien." But then she suddenly released him, frantically wiping at the fresh white dust on her lavender dress. "Ah! What the heck! You're covered in flour!"

He gave her a wink before handing back her phone. "And now you are too, princess." Still wiping at the flour on her dress, she followed him warily into the kitchen, eyeing the recent mess he had made of his cooking supplies. "Okay, so, I know I don't have the best track recordㅡ"

"Straight F's," she quipped, then bit back a laugh at the look on his face. She jumped up onto one of the cushioned stools that sat at the bar top, facing him where he stood on the other side of the counter. "Sorry, I'm listening. Go."

"I know I don't have the best track record with cooking or baking," he deadpanned. She was right though, his first few attempts at cooking had been shamefully disastrous, and he'd taken to just eating out whenever he wanted anything more complicated than ramen. "But I think I've got it figured it out now. It's like science! No, hear me out," he laughed, leaning over the sink toward her when she looked like she wanted to interrupt again. "It's all just chemistry. Mixing materials, causing reactions, changing states. Chemistry is something I understand, so I figured if I looked at it that way, maybe I could understand baking a little better."

When he pulled out two little mini-soufflés and set one in front of her, he could have sworn he saw hearts in her eyes for a second. But she blinked, and the loving, startled look on her face was gone.

"I just wanted to say thanks for last night," he said. "So, thanks." He offered her a fork.

She accepted it with a bemused smile. "It was no big deal. It never is. You know that, kittycat."

"Yeah," he said, "I know that." And he wished he knew how to tell her that that was precisely _why_ the things she did for him meant so much. "But it's a big deal to me. I guess that's why I wanted to do something nice for you. On three?" he suggested, and dug a big bite out of his own soufflé.

"Okay," she giggled. "One, two, three." In went the bites.

Adrien chewed. Thoughtfully at first, then with a growing frown, and then finally he gave up and spat the bite out in the sink. He let his tongue hang from his mouth in disgust, wondering how Marinette was still chewing. She didn't look nearly as nauseous as he felt. Ripping a paper towel from the holder by the sink, he folded it up and held it under her chin. "Spit," he commanded. She wrinkled her nose at him and pretended to enjoy it, but he insisted. "Seriously, it's terrible, please spit it out, Mari. You don't have to spare my feelings."

A glob of chewed soufflé fell from her mouth into the paper towel with a sad little plop. While he tossed it in the trash, she tried to soften his heartbreak. "It wasn't the _worst_ dessert I've ever had…"

"I don't get it," he sighed, and pulled out his phone to scroll back through the recipe he'd used. "I followed all the directions! I used all the right measurements, all the right temperatures. What am I doing wrong?"

Toying with the inedible dessert with her fork, Marinette rested her chin on her other hand. "Baking is more like art than science," she told him. "It takes practice to make good food, and it takes _years_ of practice to become a chef or a baker. I wasn't born an expert, you know, I just grew up in a bakery. Don't be upset, Adrien, you'll get the hang of it. Maybe you can try something a bit simpler next time. Something harder to mess upㅡlike boxed cake mix, or cookies."

"I'm not upset," he assured her. He just wanted to impress her, he supposed. So much for that. "I've only been trying to cook for a few months, and that recipe was probably a little out of my league. I suppose these things just take time. Hey, good thing I've got such a beautiful tutor to teach me, then, right?" He punctuated the statement with an accentuated wink.

"Wait, what?" Her lip pulled back in confusion and her fork clattered onto the bar top. "You're taking cooking lessons? Since when?" she fretted, and the hurt and confusion he saw pulling down on her shoulders made him want to punch himself in the face. "From who? I could have… Sorry, I'm being rude. I'm glad for you, if that's what you want to do. I just, I don't know. I thought that was our thing," she finished sadly. "I would have taught you everything I knew about cooking _and_ baking if you'd just asked."

"Mari," he floundered, cheeks flaring with heat as he tried to figure out how to backpedal out of these shark infested waters without explaining that he had been trying (and failing, apparently) to flirt. Why was this so _hard?_ Flirting with Ladybug before had been like breathing. It used to be so easy! Flirting with Ladybug now, post-reveal and pre-dating (maybe that last part was a bit presumptuous of him, but hey, a guy could dream), was like defusing a bomb _. "_ It _is_ our thing," he said weakly. "And that was my way of asking."

"O-oh." Picking up her fork again, she shoved it into her food distractedly, mashing it up so she wouldn't have to look at him. "I, um…"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to upset you, I should have been more direct about it. I just don't…" _Ugh_. He raked one hand through his hair.

She peeked up through her bangs, her face bright pink. "Don't what?"

Oh no, she was giving him that face. Sapphire-speckled doe eyes and a pouty, puffed out lip. He couldn't lie to that face.

"...know how to flirt with you anymore," he finished.

Taking off his apron in order to fold it over the handle of the stove offered a convenient distraction, so that he wouldn't have to look at her, or drown in the silence that followed his vulnerable admission. So willfully engrossed in this simple task was he that he didn't see her get up from her stool. Therefore when he wheeled around to apologize for being so tactless, he bumped into her so hard that he had to catch her wrist to keep her from falling onto the tile.

"Sorry," they said in unison, and backed away from each other in embarrassment as soon as Marinette had her footing.

One hand went to the back of his neck like a magnet as he desperately sought words, and though she smiled fondly at his old nervous tick, he barely noticed. Sure, they talked. Not a single day went by now when he didn't see her, in one persona or the other. But since the reveal they'd carried out an unspoken agreement; Marinette didn't ask about Chat's crush on Ladybug and he in turn kept his lips zipped about Marinette's crush on Adrienㅡat least while they sorted out all these new and old and conflicting feelings. But he'd just shattered that silent deal into a million pieces.

What he wouldn't give to be able to read the emotions on her face right now.

"Um," she said quietly, and he sucked in a sharp breath when her fingers brushed his. With absolute awe he watched her raise his hand to her face. "Well, I liked it when you used to do this." Her lips ghosted against his knuckles.

He must have looked just as heart-stoppingly gobsmacked as he felt, because her eyes crinkled with amusement. But her confidence wavered again and she lowered his hand, biting the lip that had so recently graced him with its touch.

"And how you used to put your arm around me while we would walk during patrol," she went on. "And gave me flowers. And, um, c-called me lovebug."

His eyebrows were now raised so high that they had probably disappeared into his bangs. "Is that so?" he said thoughtfully. When he brushed her cheek with his other hand she leaned into it, the movement so miniscule that he didn't actually see it. But he felt it. Her cheek was soft and warm. He spread out his hand, seeking more of that warmth, bringing his palm flush against her skin. These were uncharted waters now, and he was delighted to throw out his map and brave them with her. "I liked all that stuff too," he confessed.

Something tickled his stomach and then trailed up his chest. It was her other hand, he realized, in some distant cerebral region that wasn't focused on her face. The hand he wasn't already holding. For some reason it took that to remind him that he _was_ in fact holding her hand; that she had never released it. He pushed her fingers apart so he could lace them with his own. No going back now. Whatever they'd been working toward since the revealㅡall those late night talks and eager reacquainting and veiled blushes and shared secretsㅡwhatever was meant to happen between them was going to happen _right now._

"So why did you stop?" she murmured.

"That," he murmured back, "is a good question."

He'd been scaredㅡno, terrifiedㅡof losing what they had, were he to make his feelings clear and find out she didn't return them as fervently. To be honest he was still scared, but somehow, between one moment and the next, it had changed. It wasn't really _fear_ anymore. This was more like the anticipation that fluttered through his stomach on rollercoasters, on the long way up the very first mountain, the track click-click-clicking below him as it carried him toward the awesome, the exhilarating, and the inevitable. He felt her rising with him now toward some unknowable future as he leaned over her and she leaned up. _Click,_ she stood on her toes. _Click,_ they closed their eyes. _Click, click, click._

They came together softly, and the whole world _clicked_ into place.

The first touch was brief and wonderful. The smallest glimpse. The barest brush.

A tiny sigh escaped her as she sank a little to give her toes a rest. But he followed after hungrily, and the second touch was not nearly as brief as the first. This time he tilted his head to the side, eyebrows furrowed in intense concentration that was shattered the minute she did that sigh againㅡthis time _into his mouth._ He was a goner. She hadn't worn lipstick today so her lips were somewhat dry, and he was filled with a sudden delightful urge to fix that. So he did. And he was pretty sure, judging by the hands that were suddenly fisted in his hair, that she liked it.

He still had a hold of her bottom lip when she tried to speak, making it so that her words were hard to understand. "Why did we wait so long to do this?"

"Again," he sighed, and this time it was his words slurred by her lips. "That is a _really good question_." Something struck him as he looked down at her through eyes clouded with adoration, and he pulled back to hit her with a disarmingly sinful grin. "Also, I'm hurt that you implied I haven't gotten you flowers lately. Honestly. I got you some today and you didn't even say thank you!"

Confusion pulled her face into an adorable shape. "Really? But I didn't…" She trailed off as he tugged at the hem of her dress, his grin stretching even further into something downright absurd. It wasn't until she looked down at the lavender fabric in his hands that she understood, when she saw the white powder that had spread from his apron to her dress when he'd stolen her phone earlier.

The _flour_.

Marinette sighed and crossed her arms. "I hate you," she said.

"I love you too," he replied.


	19. There's A Boy

Gonna be cross posting all the one shots I've posted on tumblr. I'm super lazy tho so I'll just do it like one a day till I get caught up lol.

* * *

 **There's A Boy**

* * *

Tom was leaning over the oven to put in the latest batch of cookies when Sabine wandered into the room with an odd look on her face. The sound of Alya's voice carried into the room with her, pouring at a hundred miles a minute from the speaker on her phone. "Tom?" she fretted.

Her husband wiped a lingering splotch of dough from his oven mitts onto his apron and kicked the oven door shut with his foot. "Yes, dear?" He eyed Sabine's phone, trying to make sense of Alya's babbling monologue.

Something, something, _"meant to be."_ Something, something, _"matter of time."_ Then Nino's voice. _"Alya, calm down. You can't scream into the mic, dude, you're triggering a feedback loop."_

"What happened?" he chuckled, but then stopped mid-laugh when he finally noticed the uncertain expression on his wife's face. She'd only stepped out of the kitchen for a minute or two to check in on Alya's Ladyblog podcast. What could possibly have happened in so short a time?

Sabine backed out of the podcast, realizing that nothing more that Alya said would be understandable. It was alright. She'd heard enough already to understand what had happened.

"What?" Tom worried. "Fill me in, hon. I'm starting to get anxious, here."

Leaning against the counter with a sigh, Sabine couldn't decide whether she wanted to smile or pout. "Some pedestrian caught Ladybug and Chat Noir kissing behind a billboard a few minutes ago. The picture is already plastered on every website and news station."

Those words filtered through the air between them and settled on Tom like a layer of flour. "Ah," he said. "I see." His mustache twitched.

Sabine toyed with the rolling pin on the counter where she was leaning, rolling it back and forth beneath one flat palm. "I think maybe it's time we talk to her about all this."

. . .

 _ **(Later that evening…)**_

 _. . ._

"I'm home!" Marinette shouted as she burst through the front door, nearly forgetting to close it behind her. She had to double back. "What a day!" she lamented. "I'm exhausted. I'm gonna head up to my room and take a nap, if that's okay!"

She feigned a tired swipe of her forehead even though her parents weren't in here, hoping to get out of her afternoon chores in favor of burying herself forever underneath her bed. Of course they'd gotten caught. Only their third kiss and they were _already caught._ Oh, she was going to strangle that mangy son of a kitten. It was only as she was nearly through the living that Tom cleared his throat from his seat on the couch, startling Marinette and causing her to trip on the carpet. She'd walked right past them without even seeing them.

"Oh," she squeaked, concerned by the serious expressions on her parents' faces. "Hi guys. What's, uh…. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Marinette," Sabine said warmly, and patted the space next to her on the couch. "Please come sit down. We want to talk to you about something."

"O-ooh-kayyy…" Her already soprano voice trailed up into an even loftier register, previously untapped.

Instead of sitting by her mom she stood awkwardly in front of them, thankful for the coffee table that remained between them as a buffer. The timing of this random confrontation in context with her and Chat's extremely recent screw-up was more than unsettling. It was terrifying. Was she shaking right now? She might have been shaking a little bit.

"It's about your extracurricular activities," Tom supplied helpfully.

Sabine rolled her eyes as Marinette visibly paled. "Please don't freak out, Marinette, but we know."

"You… know?" she squeaked.

"We've known for a long time actually." Tom scratched his cheek with a sheepish grin. "A year and a half."

" _A year and… ?_ Butㅡbut Iㅡ"

"Don't take our calmness about this the wrong way," Sabine laughed. "We were very, very distressed when we first found out. But we've had a long time to talk it over, and we knew you kept it a secret for a good reason, and knew you'd tell us someday. When you were ready, of course."

Across the coffee table, Marinette's soul was leaving her body. All she could do was drag her hands down her face and utter, "Then _why?_ " with as much energy as she had left, and hope they understood her utter bewilderment.

"Well, we were all set on keeping quiet forever," Sabine said carefully. "But…"

"But there's a _boy_ ," Tom whined.

"Oh my god," Marinette whispered to herself, and then slowly sank to her knees on the carpet and put her face in her hands. She was going to _kill that fucking cat._

"It's okay," Sabine giggled. "We're not going to lecture you about boys, Marinette." (Tom huffed his disagreement.) "We just want to know him a little better. You could stand to bring him here more often, you know. We've only gotten to meet him twice at the most. The doors here are open; he has to know that. Bring him around for dinner!" Hell, she'd adopt the kid if that was legal.

Was that legal if his father was dissenting?

No, it probably wasn't legal.

At this point Marinette paused in her downward spiral to peek up through her fingers at her parents. "I can't do that," she said. "I'm sorry. We truthfully don't know each other's identities. That's not just something we tell reporters to get them off our backs. We really don't know." She wasn't sure what to make of the flabbergasted expressions on her parents' faces at her admission. They both raised their eyebrows and offered a quick furtive look at each other before Sabine leaned forward in earnest, both hands on her knees.

"Wait a minute," she wondered incredulously. "Do you mean to say that Chat Noir _isn't_ Adrien Agreste?"

Aaand Marinette choked on her own spit.

Why was this happening to her? She wondered this as she literally choked, seeing her short, bizarre life flash brightly before her eyes. All her most colorful memories. First day at school. Meeting Tikki. Meeting Chat Noir. Kissing him behind theㅡ _(holy hell, she knew that was a bad idea, she was going to declaw that whiskered idiot.)_ Her parents telling her they knew. Her parents telling her they thought that Chat Noir wasㅡ

"Adrien?" she screamed when she was finally able to breathe again, the word a shrill, irrational shell of her actual voice. "You think _Chat Noir_ is _Adrien?_ Why on _earth would you think that?_ "

Tom and Sabine frowned down at their dying daughter with concern. "We thought it was just…"

"Obvious?" Tom finished. "And we thought that was why you were always fawning over Adrien. It made sense."

Sabine's frown deepened into a thoughtful one. "Are you absolutely sure that Adrien isn't Chat?"

"Well _now_ I'm not!"

. . .

 _ **(Later-er that evening…)**_

 _. . ._

When Ladybug dropped in beside him at their usual meeting spot, Chat whipped around so fast that he almost got whiplash. "Please don't kill me," he spilled out. "I am so sorry about that stupid picture! I should have listened when you saidㅡ"

"Adrien?"

Aaand he tripped, and walked straight into the wall as he tried to right himself. The world had just inverted for him. He looked at his lady like she'd grown some real antennae during their brief time apart.

Ladybug narrowed her eyes. "A-dri-en," she repeated, testing each syllable like she was stepping on thin ice.

"That," he wheezed. "Is. My name. Definitely my… Wow! Wh-wow- _why?_ How. Whuhㅡ _how do you know my name?!_ "

"I think the real question," Ladybug groaned, "is how did my parents figure it out a year and a half before I did?"


	20. No Shame

Marichat May Day 1 - Milk

* * *

 **No Shame**

* * *

"Oh, you think you're sooo funny," Chat Noir deadpanned. The bowl Marinette had just set on her desk in front of him mocked him openly as its contents sloshed and settled. It was a simple silver bowl, probably from the bakery's kitchen. It wouldn't have been worthy of notice, if A) she hadn't set this down in front of him instead of a glass when she'd announced she was back with drinks from downstairs, B) if it hadn't been filled with milk, and C) if the words 'Chat Noir' hadn't been scrawled hastily on the side in sharpie.

But they were. And Marinette was really struggling to keep her shit-eating grin in check.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," she replied innocently. Too innocently. "Didn't you say you were thirsty?"

Why, that little… He had to admit, he was having almost as hard a time as she was not busting a gut about this. His pride demanded he pretend to take offense, but in reality he thought it was the funniest thing ever. Who knew Marinette had such searing sass hidden beneath that endearing stutter?

But, as absurd as it was, he had an image to maintain here. So he looked her straight in the eye with no expression at all, poked out his tongue, and slowly leaned downward toward the bowl, all while maintaining eye contact. The shock on her face amused him. Clearly she underestimated how much humiliation he would put himself through for the sake of a solid joke. Only when his tongue touched the surface of the milk did she snatch the bowl away from him, hitting them both with a bit of backsplash in the process.

"Oh my god," she laughed, "you have no shame!"

"Princess," he purred, "you really should know that by now." With an outright debaucherous wink, he stole her regular-person glass of milk and lined his lips up with the lipstick mark on the rim before taking a long, drawn-out sip.

The look on her face was priceless, and completely made up for the 'bowl of milk' thing.

* * *

 _Don't forget I'm speakswords on tumblr now!_


	21. Pink

Marichat May Day 2 - Purring

* * *

 **Pink**

* * *

Something was rumbling in her ear.

Marinette woke slowly, the soft rumble reeling her out of a pleasant dream and the unmistakable vibration of her pillow steadily grounding her in reality. But even when she blinked open her eyes it still took a moment to place the sound. At first she thought it was her phone.

But then she remembered what had been happening before she fell asleep.

Root beer floats on the balcony. Video games until well past two in the morning. Giggling at a comic book on her bed until **ㅡ** no, that was definitely the last thing she remembered. As if in response to this, she became aware of a glossy page plastered to her cheek. Sitting up, she peeled the comic book off and tossed it aside, afraid to look behind her at the other side of her bed. Because if he'd simply left, then what was that suspiciously purr-like sound? Man, they'd fallen asleep on accident again, hadn't they?

In the darkness Marinette peeked over her shoulder at him, then immediately sqeaked in terror when she saw his bare arm and wrenched her pillow up to press it over her eyes.

He isn't transformed. Oh my god, he detransformed in his sleep!

For a long moment Marinette just sat there, stock still, silently screaming into her pillow at the predicament she'd landed herself in.

Once her heart had settled to a reasonable rate, which took a full minute or two, she pried the pillow from her eyes again. He had rolled over in his sleep so that his back was to her. That was good, because the moonlight streaming in from her window above made him very easy to distinguish in the dark and she could have easily seen his face on accident. But she didn't. Good. No, wait a minute. If he wasn't transformed, then what was that purring sou **ㅡ** Oh! Marinette's eyes fell on a little black blob, curled up in a blanket fold between she and Chat Noir. Leaning toward it, her ears confirmed that the purring was, in fact, coming from Chat's sleeping kwami and not from Chat himself. Damn, that would have made for some high-value teasing material. Oh well. At any rate, seeing Plagg in person for the very first time offered a happy distraction from the fact that a boy (Chat Noir, of all boys, and a very untransformed civilian Chat Noir at that) was sleeping in her bed. Marinette lowered herself back down onto her side in order to examine the yin to Tikki's yang.

Plagg was a cute little thing. She couldn't imagine he was nearly as insufferable as Chat Noir made him out to be; although, she knew looks could be deceiving. Still, she couldn't help but think that the big-eared, fang-toothed kwami was a cutie pie. Especially with that low, contended purr vibrating the blanket that he'd nested into. Before she could stop herself, she'd reached over and started to scratch the spot behind one of his ears. The purr doubled in volume. Marinette giggled as the kwami began to kick his leg in his sleep, and soon rolled over onto his back with his legs curled into the air.

But, the little fairy-cat could only distract her for so long. Eventually her scratches began to slow, and her eyes gravitated toward Chat Noir's back.

His breaths were long and deep as he slept, but silent. Hmm. She would have pegged him for a snorer, honestly. During his waking hours he was so full of energy and sound and bubbly life that it was just strange to see him so still like this. So quiet. Her eyes dragged down his body without her permission, analyzing the clothes worn by the boy under the mask. A chalky pink (at least, it looked pink in the moonlight) button-up shirt with sleeves that ended in folds at his elbows, dark jeans, and a shockingly expensive pair of brand name boots **ㅡ** unless they were off-brand, of course, but something told her they weren't. That was interesting. Taking a tiny fold of the pink fabric between her thumb and forefinger, she tried to figure out what it was made of. Something surprisingly soft.

Clothes said a lot about people who wore them, which was one of the many reasons Marinette was so taken with fashion, and Chat Noir's clothes seemed to suggest that he was far softer underneath all that black leather than she'd really wanted to believe.

Pink, she thought to herself giddily. It shouldn't have pleased her so much that he was wearing her favorite color, but for some reason it just did. The fact that Chat Noir was one of those guys that had no qualm wearing pink tickled her to death. She loved it. She loved him.

…Not like that.

Well, maybe like that. Definitely as a best friend and definitely as Ladybug's other half, and maybe maybe maybe as something a little more. Was it really such a crime to be unsure?

Lately she was starting to feel like it was.

The warm fluttery feeling that seeing him in his street clothes had unearthed wouldn't dim, no matter how long she showered Plagg with pets and scratches. Maybe the novelty would never wear off, even when they revealed themselves. (She wasn't sure when she had started thinking about that scenario in terms of "when" instead of "if." It was a subtle switch.) Smiling to herself, she inched forward until the only thing between he and her was the sleeping Plagg, and carefully draped one arm around his middle. In his sleep he sighed. So she went a little further, pulling herself close until her knees were tucked into the crook of his bent legs and her forehead resting on the space between his shoulder blades. He'd never have to know she did this, she reasoned with herself. It'd be just for a minute. To know what it'd be like to give in…

.

.

When Adrien awoke, it was all at once.

Pink bedspread. Marinette's arm. My arms. My bareㅡ oh my god, I'm not transformed!

The shock of that was doubled by the confirmation that yes, Marinette was in fact spooning him from behind. They must have fallen asleep reading the latest LB and CN comic book (terrible, hilarious stuff right there).

"Marinette," he whispered, resting one painfully-gloveless hand on the arm wrapped tight around his middle. "Mari. Mari, wake up." Behind him she began to stir, mumbling and yawning as his heart raced until the stratosphere. "I'm… I detransformed in my sleep," he said in reply to her befuddle 'whaa..?' "You didn't… see, did you?"

"No," she said after a moment, then yawned for a third time. "I didn't–I'm–oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" The hand on his chest retracted at mach 5, igniting an embarrassing amount of disappointment in his stomach. "I must have **ㅡ** uh **ㅡ** d-done that in my sleep, or s-something! I don't know! Ohmygosh don't look at me…"

"It's okay," he murmured, fighting back a laugh at her obvious mortification. "I'm a cuddly person. And my best friend isn't really the cuddly kind of guy, so that was actually… nice. Really nice." It was probably too much to add that awaking to find her snuggled up to him had warmed his heart to a frankly deadly degree, and was also the most human contact he'd had in months outside a battle setting.

"O-oh," she breathed. "In that case… can I…?" In answer to her unfinished question and tentative hand, he lifted his arm up to let her loop hers back around his chest. Hopefully she couldn't feel his heart rate speeding up, but her hand was very close to his sternum so he was pretty sure she could. "Chat?" she asked. "You don't seem worried. Isn't your dad going to be angry that you never came home last night? It's almost…" A brief pause while she leaned away, then came back. "It's six already."

Adrien frowned at Marinette's dark but steadily brightening bedroom, realizing now that the light of morning had begun to creep upon it. "I sincerely doubt that he noticed. It'll be fine. But, just in case… as com-fur-table as I am right now, I really should be going."

"Low effort," Marinette yawned. "C minus."

"That's a passing grade," he shrugged, "so I'll take it. Marinette?"

"Yeah?"

His heart pounded as he came to an impulse decision. "Close your eyes."

"Oh, are you getting up? Don't worry, they're closed. I promise not to look."

"I know," he said, and then rolled over to face her, careful not to disturb Plagg quite yet. "I trust you." Here he'd been detransformed in front of her for hours and she hadn't broken that trust. He wasn't sure even he would have that kind of self-control, if it had been Ladybug who'd been without her mask for that long. Marinette was… He didn't know what she was. A treasure. An enigma. He mirrored her, wrapping his arm around her back to pull her closer and nuzzle his forehead against hers. She was so warm and soft and agh, what was it about her that made him want to just fold her into his arms and refuse to let go?

"Chat?"

Her voice called him to his senses about an inch from her lips. "Um…" Shit, what am I doing? "Yeah?"

"Are you making a pass at me?" Nothing in her voice betrayed her thoughts on the matter. It was steady and unwavering.

"Depends," he said slowly. "Is it working?"

Marinette took her sweet time answering while he suffered in wait. Her eyelashes fluttered, as if she was fighting very hard to keep them closed. "Yes."

"Good," he sighed, and his nose nudged into her cheek and could go no farther. "Because I've been dying to do this for weeks." And he kissed her.

Marinette's lips were tender and soft and warm, just like her. Considering the setting and the fact that his curfew was seven hours ago, he kissed her for far longer than was strictly necessary, or normal for a first kiss. It was probably 6:20 by the time he dragged himself away from her. As he transformed again and reached up to unlatch the window and make the trek home, Marinette sat up in bed, clutching the blanket to her chest and looking up, her face flushed in the morning light and her ponytail nearly unraveled.

For a brief amazing second, he was convinced she was going to tell him she loved him. He had already opened his mouth to blurt out that he loved her too when she said, "Pink is a good color on you."

His mouth snapped shut. Another day, perhaps. "I like it better on your cheeks," he winked, and disappeared into the rising sun.


	22. Much Ado

Still catching up on the fics I've posted to tumblr. BTW if any of you are following Strange Aeons, I promise I'm working on the next chapter lol. I've just been reeally busy with irl things. And rewriting the whole chapter... Sigh. Anyway here's wonderwall

* * *

 **Much Ado**

* * *

"Whatcha doin' down there, princess?"

Marinette almost leapt out of her skin at the sound of his voice above her, even though she'd specifically left the window open for him. "Homework," she supplied. "Ugh, I have to finish reading this play by tomorrow and I'm barely starting the second act."

"Ah," Chat purred, narrowing his eyes at the booklet in her hands. "The best act." Instead of dropping down onto her bed like he normally would, he lounged on his side at the edge of the windowsill, flicking his tail to and fro with a playful air. "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?"

"Oh yes. _Very_ good, kitty. We _all_ know that line **ㅡ** "

"It is the east, and Juliet the sun," he continued dramatically, as if he couldn't hear her sarcastic retort. "Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art far more fair **ㅡ** "

"Oh my god," Marinette snickered, pressing her palm over her mouth to muffle the sound lest she draw the attention of her parents. "Do you seriously know the whole thing?"

Chat lowered his sultry gaze to the hand covering her mouth, one hand on his heart. "Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand!"

Marinette snatched her hand away from her face like she'd been burned, cheeks flaming. "Alright, you cornball," she grumbled. "Get in here before one of the neighbors see you." When he acquiesced with a toothy grin, she lowered her eyes back to Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene i. " _Why_ can you quote Shakespeare at the drop of a hat?"

It was almost criminal how instantly comfortable and at home he could make himself on her bed while wearing a frickin' catsuit. As he considered her question, his cat ears twitched against her pillow. "Let's just say my father overvalues rote memorization as a form of education."

Marinette scrunched her nose at that for a second before saying, "He sounds harsh. Have you ever thought about denying thy father and refusing thy name?"

"Mmm," he hummed. "You pose a tantalizing point. The ultimate question. What's in a name?"

The pages crinkled as she turned one absently. "I thought the ultimate question was: To be or not to be?"

"To sleep **ㅡ** perchance to dream. You're right, of course, princess. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."

"You? A coward?" Marinette deadpanned, eyes still on her booklet. It was hopeless to believe she was soaking in any of the words on the page, though, now that Chat had arrived to distract her. "I'd never have guessed it."

"Meowch, Marinette. Don't make me bite my thumb at you."

That drew Marinette's gaze up from the page, finally. "Okay, I may not have been paying close attention to this play," she seethed, "but I _know_ that means 'screw off' or something in Shakespearean. I'd bite your tongue instead of your thumb, if I were you, you mangy cat."

"Or what?" he glowed. "You'll bite it for me?"

"You are incorrigible," Marinette groaned, dragging one hand down her face. "You know that?"

"Sure," he snickered, "but you love me **ㅡ** and I do love _nothing_ in the world so well as you…"

"Ohohhokay, you lost me there," she laughed insincerely, her heart tripping over his words. Was that a quote too? Or was he just being Chat? "I haven't dipped any farther into his collection than Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet."

"O-oh," he stammered, his cheeks pinking as he realized she wasn't sure whether he had just spouted another quote or _actually confessed to loving her._ "Much Ado About Nothing," he explained, and combed one hand through his hair with a sheepish grimace.

Sighing with relief (and maybe just a smidge of disappointment…) Marinette returned her eyes to the page at hand. _I take thee at thy word,_ she read.


	23. Growing Up

Marichat May Day 11 - Aged-Up Marinette

* * *

 **Growing Up**

* * *

"Excuse me, sir?"

The cashier at the corner-store looked up from the book he was reading and his mouth fell open in soft surprise. Marinette laid her smile on thick. Having caught her reflection on the glass door on her way in, she knew she looked like she just rolled off a crashing train. Soot tracks sat smeared up the left side of her face, there was a large tear in her jeans complete with a fresh cut to match, and to top it off (having ditched her heels long ago) she was now barefoot.

"Are you alright?" the man worried. "Do you need help?"

"I'm okay. But yes, actually. I do need help." She leaned tiredly on the counter and pointed to the landline resting on the wall behind him. "Can I borrow your phone?"

.

.

Adrien stepped out of the taxi and adjusted his sweater so that Plagg was fully hidden inside. "Do you think she's okay?" he fretted under his breath to the kwami as his eyes scanned the neighborhood park for any sign of his friend. "She sounded so… off, on the phone."

"Kid," Plagg whispered, "I couldn't tell ya. You answered the phone call, not me."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm just worried."

Truth be told, he was _extremely_ worried. It was only recently that he and Marinette had become closer friends (with Nino and Alya steadily merging at the hip it had been an inevitability). But even though they spent time together almost every day, Adrien still couldn't shake the feeling that Mari wasn't entirely comfortable with him and never would be. It made sense, considering her aspirations in context with his family legacy. It was probably intimidating. So, although the prospect of never being as close to her as he wanted to be saddened him, he'd long since accepted it as the cold hard reality.

Which was why he'd been so shocked to get a phone call from her out of the blue from a random number, begging him to meet her at the park because she desperately needed his help.

He'd made it almost all the way through the empty park now without finding her, and he was growing increasingly concerned. It was only when the path reached a ramada that he spied a lifeform in the empty scenery, in the form of a mop of black hair with her back to him, sitting on the stone bench. The crunching of the leaves finally caught her attention and she rose, turning toward him as she went.

"Oh!" He stopped in his tracks two feet from the stranger he'd mistaken for Marinette. "I'm sorry," he laughed, "I thought you were someone else."

But the stranger didn't seem to hear him. She crossed the empty space and threw her arms around him, crushing him in a powerful hug and tucking her face into his neck. "You have _no idea_ how glad I am to see you!" The hug tightened even further and he felt her sigh on his skin; a warm gust of air in the autumn chill.

"Have we met?" Adrien managed to ask through the lung-constricting embrace.

The woman pushed him to arm's length then and Adrien tried to get a proper look at her. She was disheveled in the 'just ran through an akuma warzone' sort of way that he himself was intimately familiar with. That was odd, because there were no akumas about today. She certainly resembled Marinette, so it was no wonder that he'd made the mistake, but she was also at least eight or nine years Marinette's senior. There was a rugged beauty about her and he found his heart speeding up as she stared at him in a way that made him feel utterly naked.

"I _am_ Marinette," the woman finally said, and for some reason tears brimmed in her eyes as she spoke. "I'm sorry," she laughed, and hastily wiped one away as it spilled, smearing the soot marks a little further up her temple. "It's just, wow! You're so _young_. I thought I was mentally prepared to see you but now I'm going all sentimental. This is kinda overwhelming."

"You're… Marinette," he repeated slowly. Testing out the words. His brain jumped straight to the word 'impossible,' but then again, he was one of those people that experienced the impossible six times before breakfast. This wouldn't be nearly the craziest thing that had ever happened. Honestly, if this woman was telling the truth and she was Marinette, it was crazier that she had come to him for help than it was that she had magically aged.

"Yeah," she sighed, and released him. "I know this is a little nuts, but here goes. We were fighting an akuma together and it sent me back in time," she explained. "I got sent here from twelve years in the future."

"…Wait."

"I don't know exactly how it works, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with this creepy necklace," Marinette went on, poking at a pocketwatch-type necklace that hung around her neck. An eerie radiation oozed from the hands on the clockface. "Every time the akuma put one on someone they would disappear, and then I made a wrong move and he got me. Bam. Just like that, I ended up here," she shrugged.

"Iㅡ Marinette, what are you saying?"

"What do you mean?" she worried. "Should I start again? Or do you not believe me?"

"No, Iㅡ I believe you," Adrien reeled (after all, that necklace just reeked of akuma), "it's just what you said aboutㅡ"

"Oh thank god," Marinete breathed, her shoulders drooping with relief. "I don't know what I'd have done if you didn't believe me. I'm certain I have to break this thing in order to get back to my own time, but nothing I've tried so far has worked. I banged it on the ground, I dropped it off a building, I even put it in the road and let a garbage truck run it over! But it didn't leave a scratch!"

"Slow downㅡ"

"So that's why I called you! Could you cataclysm it for me please?"

The whole world blurred behind Marinette as he struggled to focus in on her. _We,_ she said. _We were fighting… together._

Adrien leaned in, squinting deep into her eyes.

Searching.

 _"…Ladybug?"_

The color left Marinette's face so fast when he spoke that for a moment he was sure she would faint. "Um… yes?" she squeaked. "Oh my god. Adrien, you… you knew, right? Oh my god, please tell me you already knew."

"I know now," he said numbly.

Marinette's hands flew up to cover her face, her eyes squeezing shut behind them. "Shit! Shit shit shit! You were supposed to know by now!" she cried out. "You're sixteen right now, right? When we were sixteen you said I told you!"

"I'm sixteen right now." Adrien's mouth moved of its own accord, as if it was some separate entity from his body, because his heart and soul had left the premises to do a victory lap around the sun. A weird thought poked at his gleeful bubble. Something in her phrasing had been strange and off. "Wait, so in your future, you told me your identity when we were sixteen… but you don't remember telling me?"

"No," she groaned from behind her hands. "You just showed up at patrol one day said that I'd told you my identity under the influence of an akuma, and then told me yours. I really thought I'd done the math right when I called you," she said, and Adrien realized with a jolt that she'd started to cry. "Damn it. I thought you already knew, Adrien, I'm so sorry."

"Hey, hey," he soothed, gently prying her hands away from her face in order to lead her back over to the bench under the ramada, where they settled together on the chilly concrete surface. "Don't cry, bugaboo. What's the harm in accidentally telling me? So what? Now I know, and you just made me the happiest guy on the entire planet. Why are you so upset?"

Despite the tear tracks cutting through the soot on her cheeks, a playful smile caught her trembling lip. "You silly cat," she hiccupped. "It's been so long since you've called me that."

"Wait, what?" The bottom of his stomach dropped out. "Why would I stop calling you that?"

"Oh, don't get your whiskers in a twist," she said, and poked at his nose. "You traded that dumb nickname for a hundred better ones."

"Yet you miss 'bugaboo,'" he snickered knowingly. He couldn't wait to use that one on present-day Ladybug again, who so willfully insisted that she couldn't stand that nickname. That adorable little liar.

"Yeah," older Ladybug sighed, her voice wistful and full of sudden longing. "I suppose what I actually miss is you," she admitted.

"But… but you said we wereㅡ"

"Not like that," she corrected. "Don't you worry about that, we see each other every single day in my time period." If that wasn't enough to fuel his heart for the next decade, her following words did the trick. "I miss you in a nostalgic way. You know that feeling you get when you look at childhood photos and you yearn for those days again, even though you've come so far and you're happy now and you wouldn't really want go back?"

"Yeah," he smiled. "I know that feeling." She got all that just from looking at him? "Marinette?" he said slowly. He knew he shouldn't ask, just as he knew she wouldn't answer. And yet he couldn't control his tongue. "In the future, are weㅡ?"

"Uh-uh," she interrupted merrily. "I already screwed up the timeline enough for one day, don't you think? No questions about what the future is like."

"Yeah, yeah," he sighed.

That was so Ladybug of her. Although, tripping her way through revealing the secret her present-day self was still adamant on keeping was rather Marinette of her. It made him giddy, seeing her all in one piece for the first time, even if it was a Ladybug/Marinette so much older than him that he supposed he hardly knew her.

"Alright, I guess I should kill that necklace for you. Plagg, come on out," he said to his jacket.

He didn't want to send her back just yet, but there was another time period where Chat Noir was in desperate need of his Ladybug right now. They were probably good to just do the deed here; the entire park was deserted and the overcast sky made for a grey color scale that blurred the city, ensuring they wouldn't be easy to pick out from the apartment building a couple hundred yards away from this place.

"I wish I could stay," she sighed, mirroring his exact thoughts. "I'm so sorry I dropped that on you with no warning. It was probably a lot better the first time, the way it was meant to be before I came meddling in the past." She shielded her eyes from the sudden flash of radioactive light that burst forth under the ramada as Plagg flew into the ring and transformed him.

"I don't know," Adrien shrugged when he was finished transforming into Chat Noir, his heart doing a smug little dance at the way Marinette seemed to be memorizing his every feature a second time. "I don't know if there's any such thing as 'meant to be,' especially when you start mucking about with the fabric of space-time."

Marinette bit her lip and removed the necklace, handing it over to him with a smidge of reluctance. "You think so, kitty?"

The way the nickname fell from her lips so casually did not escape him. It had never sounded more loving or comfortable than it did in her mouth twelve years in the future, and that warmed him against the autumn breeze more than any sweater ever could. "I'm sure of it," he said. The hazy glow of the necklace reflected back at him in her eyes as he prepared to disintegrate it.

"Well, you're wrong," she smiled, and it was such a dazzling smile that he forgot how to breathe. "I can think of at least one thing that's meant to be." She stepped a little closer and he forgot how to think too.

"M-Mariㅡ?"

Even though she was twelve years older than her present-day counterpart, she still had to stand on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. By the time she pulled away he knew his face must be as red as her faded lipstick. That obviously tickled her to death, and she put her hand on his cheek too as if to seal her kiss there forever, her thumb brushing affectionately at the bottom edge of his mask.

"You grew up to be such a good man," she said softly. "I'm so proud of you."

"D-don't go," he blurted, fingers tightening around the necklace that had brought her here, to him, curling the thing subconsciously toward his chest. An hour ago he'd still been pining hopelessly after Ladybug, and sure that Marinette would never care for him with the same intensity he did for her. Now they were one person and she was here in front of him and all signs pointed to a world where they were best friends and more and he couldn't stand for her to leave him, to go back to the way it was before. He _needed her._

"Oh, kitty." The nickname did dangerous things to him with the knowledge he now had. "I know it's hard to be young. To start from scratch and work your way up. It must be tough, seeing me like this, so much older, and not knowing what it's like for us in my time period. Growing up is tough. You never know which way the twists and turns will take you. It's scary. I'll admit it. But you know what the best part about growing up was?"

His grip on the necklace loosened. Ladybug had always been smart, but apparently the years had tempered the natural intelligence into something even more sage.

"What?" he wondered, too taken with the wonderful woman that Ladybug would one day become to foresee the obvious direction she was steering that sentence in.

It only hit him when she beamed at him and flicked his bell. "Growing up with you, of course.

The rush of hope that flooded into his heart at her words was undammable. He would _never_ forget this moment.

"Now send me back to my own time, kittycat. And whatever you do, don't tell my past self anything about my future self, got it? I don't want to mess with the timeline any further."

"As you wish, my lady. You ready?"

She nodded. "Ready."

"I'll see you later, then, bugaboo. _Cataclysm._ "

.

.

Marinette fell face first into a pool of gravity-bending light and then stumbled out of it the wrong direction just as quickly as she'd entered. Unable to see, she tripped on the cobblestone and fell to the ground, catching herself at the last second on her hands and knees.

"Mari!" It was Adrien's voice, but she couldn't see him through the spots in her eyes left by the light until the padding footsteps stopped and he fell to his knees in front of her. "Are you alright? What happened? Where did youㅡ"

"Shh, it's okay," she soothed. "I'm fine. I'm not hurt. I know what those necklaces do now, though."

He blinked at her. "What?"

"Send people back in time." She rubbed the last spots from her eyes, waiting for that to sink in. She could tell the moment it clicked.

"Ohhh," he gasped. "You mean you just…"

"Yep."

"And you sawㅡ"

"Yyyep."

An absolutely devilish smile erased the concern from his face. "Did you have fun with mini-me, lovebug?"

"So you remember that?" she asked incredulously. Frankly, she hadn't been a hundred percent sure how her appearance in the past would affect her future. She didn't know whether she'd created an alternate timeline or just altered her own. Who knew, when it came to time travel?

"Of course I do." He helped her briskly to her feet and curled his tail around her waist, pulling her in close. "I'll _never_ forget the day I found out who you were."

"Butㅡ wait, but you always said I told you when we were sixteen," she floundered. This didn't make any sense.

"I said you told me when I was sixteen," he corrected. "I never said anything about how old you were."

"Wait, wait, _wait_. So this whole time, for all these years, when you said I told you my identity under the influence of an akuma, you were talking about _this?_ "

"If I say yes," he worried, "are you going to murder me?"

"Maybe!" she screeched up at him. "Why didn't you say anything?!"

"I distinctly remember you telling me not to," he purred, wrapping his tail a little tighter about her torso for fear of her pulling away. "Something about timelines and altering them more than necessary."

"Yeah, but…" She scrunched her nose and lips into an angry mess, crossing her arms over her chest. "We've been married for six years, you mangy excuse for an alley cat. I thought we had no more secrets."

He knew she was mostly joking, but that stung just enough to prompt a real answer. "I'll be honest," he said, taking her chin in his hand. "I sometimes worried that if I told you the truth about it, you would decide not to tell me whenever the day came for you to be sent back in time, as some noble attempt to rectify the change you'd made to the past by telling me in the first place." He could tell by the sudden thoughtful look on her face that he'd nailed her; she was already considering it as an option. He was glad he'd kept it a secret. Because, "If you hadn't slipped up and told me that day, who knows how long it'd have taken us to come clean?"

Marinette's ire softened in the face of his vulnerable admission. "We would have told each other eventually," she reasoned. "You know that."

"Probably. But I couldn't bring myself to take the chance. And, now that you know what really happened that day…"

"…What?"

He pressed his forehead to hers. "I can finally make fun of you for it."

Marinette tried to shove away from him then with a roll of the eyes but Adrien's tail wasn't having it. "Tikki, where are you?" she called out. "I need to transform so I can escape this hell."

Tikki waved from her perch on top of the cardboard boxes. "Are you sure?" she giggled. "You two looked so comfortable, I didn't want to interrupt."

"You said you missed being called bugaboo," Adrien snickered.

"I said I missed you, you big fat idiot!"

"But you see me every freakin' day!" he cackled, still unrelenting as she tried to escape the iron grip of his tail. "We live together and work together and fight crime together and sleep togetherㅡ" (he paused briefly as she choked on her own spit) "ㅡoh, not like that, you pervertㅡokay, well also like thatㅡbut I distinctly remember you saying that you missed me. What was that all about?"

When she stilled in his arms he wondered if he'd somehow hurt her feelings. But then she looked up at him with that thoughtful expression again, and his heart stuttered in his chest. It was amazing how, even now, she could still give him butterflies. "Imagine if you got to go back in time right now, and see me how I was twelve years ago. How would that make you feel?"

He considered her words. Smugly at first… then very seriously. He imagined a young Marinette, lively and jubilant in everything she did, her cheeks still round with youth, her favorite hairstyle still those adorable pigtails. And he found, to his shock, that he very much missed her.

Marinette must have seen the switch flip, because it was her turn to grin up at him smugly. "See?" she said. "I'm not crazy. You miss me too!"

"Yeah," he admitted, and his playful hold on her turned soft and sentimental. "But not so much that I'd go back. You were right back then. The best part of growing up was growing up together."

* * *

.

.

Not gonna lie, this was mildly inspired by the Time Traveller's Wife. But only the fluffy parts, not the devastating parts, obviously haha. So there was technically a lot of marichat in here, but I suppose it's more of a full square kind of fic since their identities are revealed. Hard to say where marichat ends and the rest of them begin at that point. Sorry if it doesn't fit in line with the spirit of Marichat May, but once I had this idea, I was helpless to do anything but write it.


	24. Adrien and Mari Hang Out

...Chat named this chapter, ok? Take your pun rage up with him. Also, yes I'm still working on Strange Aeons. I'm sorry! D': My life has been extra crazy the last couple weeks and I've been dealing the best I can. I'm hoping to have Ch. 7 up by the end of this week. Thank you for your patience. xoxo

This chapter is from a tumblr prompt list made by baneismydragon, and the prompt itself was sent in by an anon.

7. _grab 'em by the collar and kiss 'em_

* * *

 **Adrien and Mari Hang Out**

* * *

"Don't panic," Adrien called over the wind, his words punctuated by a violent whip of the French flag that caught him across the cheek. Akuma attacks were never convenient, but the worst attacks of all were the ones where he was caught at the epicenter and left without his kwami. Plagg was in his backpack on the first floor of the library, where he and Marinette had been swept up as civilian bait to lure Lady and Chat out of the woodworks. So that's why the two of them were bound with rope to the flags that stuck out the front of the library near the roof, four stories off the ground, each facing the sidewalk with a pole at their backs.

When she didn't answer, he swiveled his head to look at her. She was struggling against the rope. Not good. "Marinette, try not to panic. You could fall!"

"I'm - not - panicking," she grunted, and continued her writhing. "I'm - stra - te - gizing. Yes! Got it!"

"Got what?" Though he trusted Ladybug with his heart and soul, he knew from experience that it was dangerous to count on her timely appearance when there were lives at stake. So if Marinette had a plan that could help in the meantime, he was all for hearing it.

"Pocket knife," she said, and promptly returned to writhing against the ropes that bound her arms to her sides and to the flagpole above her.

Okay, why did Marinette even have a pocket knife with her at a simple study session? Odd. "Hey, go easy," he worried, "you're gonna hurt yourself, Mari." The rope was giving way for her shoulder, but it wasn't getting any looser (which would also have been bad, considering that it was there only thing keeping her up). But where her skin started to show, he could see the rope was rubbing it raw. Already a clear burn was taking shape on the one shoulder he could see.

Two steely blue eyes squinted back at him in a way that tugged a familiar heart string. "If we fall it'll hurt a lot worse. Here, I've got it poking out now. Think you could grab it and cut me loose?"

Adrien blanched as the mental image of her plummeting four stories flared up in his mind like a wailing siren. Nooope. No. No way. "Cut me loose instead," he suggested. "My arms are tied too tight, I can't get one free." Lies. He was sure he could, but he was NOT cutting her loose unless his arms were free enough to grab her.

It was obvious that idea terrified her. "Oh, I don't know, Adrien. You could fall!"

He just gaped at her. This was the girl that had, literally two seconds ago, asked him to cut her loose without batting an eye. But when he asked the same, she balked.

How on Earth did the idea of him falling scare her more than the idea of her falling?

"Just do it," he urged. "I'm agile, okay? I won't fall. Marinette, look at me." She was starting to panic so he waited for her to slow her breathing and look him in the eye again, exuding as much calmness as he possibly could. "I won't fall."

The quiver in her lip and the wetness in her eyes woke a million dormant questionsㅡthings that had been stirring ever since she sought him out four months ago on the day after graduation, with the words 'I'd like to get to know you better' on her tongue.

"Promise?" she whispered, and the word was packed with more meaning and emotions than he'd known that word could carry. Her eyes burned with answers to the question he had never been brave enough to ask. Near death experiences had a way of burning all the veils. She didn't even have to say it. He saw it on her face, as bright as the high noon sun that cast their shadows in harsh relief amidst the gathering crowd far below. I love you.

He set his jaw. "I promise."

It took her just over a minute to cut through the first loop of the rope wound around his torso, and once she did he immediately felt the slack pulling his back away from the flagpole. A few whips of rope and he was fallingㅡor rather, he would have been falling if he hadn't been ready. But his hands flew up the instant they were free and caught hold of the pole near his head, leaving his legs to swing out wide and the unraveling rope to drip from his body in loopy waves, finally leaving him completely free. The crowd below surged with commotion. Cries and gasps abounded as Adrien fought for his grip on the bendy pole, scarcely able to see through the striped French flag as it fluttered madly.

Once the pole stopped wobbling, he was able to get a good swing going. A few deep breaths, then up and over. It was a cheap easy trick for Chat Noir. For Adrien Agresteㅡa powerless civilian seventy feet above the groundㅡit was borderline suicidal. But it was like muscle memory, and after a smooth 180 spin he stuck the landing, feet coming to rest between his hands on the pole. The resulting crouch may have been a bit too 'Chat' for his secret's sake, but with Marinette's life (quite literally) on the line, he wasn't really thinking about that.

The half-horrified, half-awed look on her face made him wonder if she was thinking about it, though.

"Alright, hang tight," he said, and he actually had to catch himself from tacking on a 'princess' there at the end. This was so not the time to accidentally reveal that her good friend Adrien was also the masked crusader that often saved her from harm with flirty lines that he was entirely too proud of. "I'm coming to get you, okay?"

"What, no!" she blurted, her face pulled askance with fresh horror. "No, just climb up! You can reach the roof ledge from there, Adrien, go for help!"

"And leave you tied here as human bait?" he asked, preparing for the jump by mentally calculating the angle and trajectory. "Not fucking likely."

"Adrien don'tㅡAH!" She screamed as his hands made contact with the base of her flagpole as simply as if he was a gymnast moving bars. "Adrien? Adrien!" She struggled in place to turn her head, but it was impossible to see him from where he was.

"Still here," he soothed, but it came out rather forced as he was currently climbing up onto the pole. Couldn't risk a flip this time, with her attached to this one. Once he was up, he took a second to catch his breath and calm his racing heart before hatching the next phase of his plan. "You trust me, right?"

"I don't like that question in this context," she squeaked. "But yes."

"Then I'm gonna get you out of there. Take my hand."

Spreading his weight out longways above her so as not to bend the pole any more than it was already bending, he took the pocket knife from her free hand and locked his forearm tightly with hers, hand to wrist and wrist to hand. Then he set about cutting her free. It took even less time than it had taken for him, considering she'd already loosened her bonds quote a bit in freeing her arm. There was a frightening moment when he felt her slipping away from him, but she was quick and had her hand on the pole before the rope had finished unraveling. After a short tense struggle she had climbed her way up onto the pole beside him.

"Fuck me," she breathed, eyeing the two bundles of rope on the sidewalk far below. "That could have been us…"

They got to their feet as one unit, with Adrien leaning on the wall for support and she with her arms cinched tightly around his bicep. From here, the distance to the roof was a few feet above Adrien's head.

"You first," she directed, "then you can pull me up."

Adrien could hear the gathered onlookers cheering as he pulled himself up, then turned around to lay flat on the rooftop and reach over the edge to lock hands with Marinette again. That fierce determination filled her eyes once more as she grabbed ahold of him and ran up the wall with a surprising amount of ease and dexterity. This girl was just full of surprises today. First the secret pocket knife, then the willpower of a god that drove her to free her arms through a mile of rope burns, and now she was running up walls likeㅡ like…

The thought was instantly detailed as she completed her run up the wall and slammed into him on her way over the edge, sending them both rolling backwards into safety. "Oh my god, your arms," Adrien gasped, catching sight of the rope burns on her bare shoulders before they'd even begun to untangle themselves from each other.

But she didn't hear him. Still laying prone on the bare concrete roof with her strew haphazardly across his body, he'd barely gotten himself propped up onto his elbows when she looked him in the eye, seized his collar, and kissed him with a desperation that was somehow both furious and triumphant.

He couldn't help it; he gasped.

Upon feeling his shock, she ripped herself away. "Sorry," she squeaked. But as she rolled off and tried to stand, his arms shot out after her and pulled her back to return her furious kiss with one equally as fervent. Soft fingers threaded into his hair as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Their lips moved in tandem, spelling out words in an unspeakable language. God, how he'd wanted this. Why did he wait so damn long? A noise of smothered longing escaped Marinette's throat and he reveled in it, tasting it, bathing in the fact that she was alive and unharmed and definitely absolutely as in love with him as he was with her. This kiss was more heart pounding than the entire experience of being left out as bait. By the time Marinette paused to speak he had worked himself into a state of underailable passion.

"You were amazing," she sighed, and her breath on his lips was a drug.

"Me? Are you kidding? You were amazing! I can't believe you had a pocket knifeㅡ"

"ㅡcan't believe you just swung up like that andㅡ"

"ㅡeven though it was burning you. I swear you're the most incredibleㅡ"

"ㅡreally thought you were going to fall and I don't know what I'd have done if youㅡ"

"Hey," he interrupted gently, and nudged her nose with his. "I promised I wouldn't fall. Didn't I?"

"Yeah," she sighed, and her hands trailed down from his hair back onto his collar, where they stayed. "You did."


	25. Just One

Another tumblr prompt, from an anon.

 _4\. kiss away the tears_

* * *

 **Just One**

* * *

This was a bad idea. Adrien landed on the tiny balcony that led into Marinette's apartment and set her on her feet between a hanging basket of flowers and potted bamboo. There she wobbled with the motion sickness that people always tended to get when he pole-vaulted them across the city. When halfway through patrol he had spotted her on the street below, _still crying_ , a full seven hours after he'd gently turned her down as Adrien, he couldn't help himself. It's not like he could have cheered her up as Adrien. She probably never wanted to see him again. But maybe Chat Noir could put a smile back on that face.

Marinette paused halfway through her sliding glass door and turned back to him with a watery smile, and it lanced straight through his heart. She beckoned him inside, and he followed. Helplessly.

This wasn't just a bad idea. This was impending disaster.

"Thanks for taking me home," Marinette said, and he hated how raw her voice sounded. As if she hadn't stopped crying for even a moment since Adrien told her he was in love with someone else. He seriously hated himself right now. "I've had a bad day. Do you want something to drink? I have some some fancy wine if you feel like staying for a bit."

Adrien slid the glass door shut behind him. "Yeah," he offered kindly. "I noticed. Uh…" Was it wrong to stay and have a glass of wine with her when he was the reason she was suffering? Or was it the least he could do? "Wine sounds nice." As she mussed about in the cupboards for glasses and set about filling them, Adrien leaned on the counter and ached over what to say. "So. Who do I have to kill?"

Marinette snorted, and the tears that had been brimming in her eyes tapered off again. That seemed promising. "Please don't kill him," she sighed. "It's just… this friend of mine. I finally told him how I felt today, and he didn't feel the same way. It's okay!" she blurted, seeing the sudden sadness on Adrien's face and misinterpreting it entirely. "I sort of knew, all along. It's really okay. Now I can finally start to get over him, so at least there's that."

The wine was pink and sweet, which bit with a sort of irony that Adrien really didn't want to think about right now.

"You know what I think?" he said, looking around her living room at the half-dressed mannequins and pastel wall art. "I think you can probably do better than that idiot."

Exiting the tiny kitchen, Marinette crossed in front of him and made her way into the living room–only to turn around and face him again, as if she were lost in her own home. "If you think dissing the guy who turned me down is gonna make me feel better…" The intense eyebrow-heavy disapproval faded into something softer as she surveyed him. "It's sweet of you to try. You don't even know me."

 _Oh, I know you._

"Nonsense," he laughed, and a bit of his wine sloshed onto her counter top. "I've saved you a few times before. Don't you remember?" The surprised blush that spread across her cheeks tickled him. Had he flattered her?

"I remember," she said after a long moment. "I'm just surprised that you do, is all. You save people every day. I really didn't expect that I would stick out from the pile of civilian faces in your memory."

Adrien beamed. He _had_ flattered her!

"If you must know," he went on, "I may have had just the tiniest crush on you back when I was in lycee."

She choked on the wine that she was currently swallowing, and was forced to cross in front of him again to set down her glass, lest she drop it in her coughing fit. "What the hell," she finally spluttered. "You can't just say stuff like that!"

"Why not?" he mused, pleased as all hell that he'd succeeded in his quest to cheer her. After all, what on earth was more uplifting than finding out a superhero used to crush on you? "It was like–" (he counted on his fingers) "–six years ago."

"Wait, you were being _serious? Why?_ "

"Well, yeah," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing. "And I dunno. You were so… un-damsel-in-distress-y. It was badass."

"But? But? I thought you were in love with Ladybug!"

"Well, yeah," he said again. "But I'm not blind. And… I'm human, you know? I was definitely fighting the urge to spiderman kiss you on at least one occasion."

Marinette now had her face down on her arms on the counter, and was grumbling incoherently. "Okay, now I know you're just trying to cheer me up."

"Sure," he laughed. "Of course I am. But I'm also being honest."

That got her to lift her head. He didn't know what to make of the sudden intense look on her face, and definitely didn't know what to make of the sudden return of the brimming tears. Shit, he screwed up again, didn't he? Before he could apologize for making things weird, she sidled toward him, one arm sliding in behind him on the counter to come to a rest at his back.

"If we're being honest," she said slowly. "Then I may have had the tiniest crush on you back then, too."

"R-really?" he breathed. His throat was dry. Why was his throat so dry?

"Uh-huh. I was definitely fighting the urge to pull you in through my skylight on at least one occasion."

"Is that right?" He numbly watched her pull the wine from his hand, some faraway part of him wondering what she was doing as she set it on the counter, and some even farther part of him knowing exactly what she was doing.

"Do you still think about me sometimes?" she asked quietly. "Or was I just a teenage fantasy?"

 _Oh shit. Oh shit._ The blinders vanished and Adrien was suddenly reminded of his 'disaster' premonition on the balcony. She had her fingers on his collar now, and her eyes were wide with anticipation. Too late to abort. He was in too deep. He couldn't turn her down twice in one day!

But…

But she didn't know he was Adrien. And if she never found out…

One kiss couldn't hurt.

"I still think about you," he confessed, and his heart rate spiked as her hand moved to his neck. Her thumb traced his jawline.

"So kiss me then," she whispered, and despite all the logical reasons not to, he did. She responded enthusiastically, the instant his lips touched hers, and threw her arms up around his neck. Her lips tasted of wine, and her tongue even moreso. _There_ was the irony he'd been trying to avoid thinking about, that petal pink sweetness in the wine, that flowery light honey-smooth taste. It tasted like her. Now that he had his tongue in her mouth he couldn't help but make the connection.

When her back bumped into the counter she kept on kissing him, oblivious to the half-finished glass of wine that he accidentally knocked over as he pressed against her. Whether it was his or hers he didn't know. His knee knocked against the lower cabinet between her legs and she bit his lip, gasping in response to whatever he'd just done. Her legs went weak and her arms flew back to find purchase on the counter, to support her weight. The movement immediately sent the other glass tumbling into the sink, where wine splashed up the backside so far that a few pink droplets hit the ceiling.

"Ah… whoops," he said, shakily.

"Crap, I– I better clean that before it stains," she fussed. "This is just a rental, you know."

"I should probably be going anyway," he said as he backed off into the living room. "Kind of abandoned my patrol, there, a little bit."

"Wait," she said suddenly, when his hand was on the sliding glass door. "Will you come see me again?"

 _No,_ said Logic. _No, no, no._

He glanced over his shoulder at her and Logic stepped out. "Yes."


	26. Why Does Ivan Have Bunk Beds In His Room

Another tumblr prompt, this one from 'somethingmoreclever.'

 _15\. accidental kiss_

* * *

 **Why Does Ivan Even _Have_ Bunk Beds In His Room?**

* * *

"I swear to god, you guys are the biggest nerds I know," Adrien mused.

With a dubious eyebrow lift, Nino peeked up at him over his handful of cards from across the bed. "Something something black kettle. Your turn, Nath." He nudged the redhead to his right after throwing one last card down.

"Aw crap!" Nathaniel groaned as he examined Nino's latest play. "You gotta be kidding me…" He poked around his own deck and reevaluated his strategy for a moment before setting his hand facedown to wrinkle his nose at Adrien. "Also, what? You are the biggest nerd here, Adrien, hands down. I seem to recall a _quantum physics_ pun that you made literally three minutes ago–"

"Ivan's cat jumped into a box!" Adrien crossed his arms. "What was I supposed to do? _Not_ make a Schrodinger's Cat pun?"

"Yes," Ivan deadpanned with a smirk, taking his short turn with no fanfare and indicating with a pointed look that it was now Adrien's turn again.

"Okay, so I'm a nerd," Adrien blushed angrily. "But this magic card game is way nerdier than punnage, and you are all nerds by proxy for playing it!"

"He's just mad cause he's losing to me," Nathaniel snickered to Ivan. "Since I suck at this."

Nino chuckled maniacally as Adrien threw down a card that would play into Nino's unfolding master plan. "He's just mad that he's never gotten to play it before, since M. Fashion Dad never allowed him any visitors in his ivory tower when he was a kid."

Feigning offense and throwing his cards up in a flutter of defeat, Adrien decided to leave them to their magic cards. "You guys have fun. I'm ditching you for the girl bunk." With that, he turned around and slid off the edge of the top bunk so that he was hanging upside down like a bat by the legs, hair downward. The girls were immersed in some other card game he was also unfamiliar with.

"Hey," he grinned. "Can I crash the party?"

"Girls only!" Alya shrieked, and threw a pillow at his face.

The pillow bounced off and hit Marinette, who was the closest to him at the edge of the bed. She grabbed hold of it and held it to her chest like it was a stuffed animal, which was adorable. "Bored of Magic the Gathering already?" she mused.

"It takes so _long_ ," he complained. "What are you guys playing? Some kind of…" he squinted as he tried to read the cards in her hand upside-down. They were covered in pictures of zombified animals. "Is that pig eating that other pig's brain?"

"You have a pig cannibal?" Mylene gasped. "Oh my gosh, and I almost played my zonkey just now. Thanks Adrien! You saved my butt! Your turn, Juleka."

"Whoops." He grinned weakly as Marinette hit him with an unimpressed glare. "Can I still come down or should I see myself out?"

"You can come down, but only if you– Hang on. Guys, you're jostling the whole bed," Marinette shot over her shoulder at Alya and Juleka, who were now wrestling over whatever card Juleka had played. "You're gonna make Adrien fall."

"Oh, I won't fall," Adrien assured her with a sly toothy grin. "Trust me on–"

His words were cut short when Juleka tackled Alya, who fell backwards into Marinette, who lurched forward and hit Adrien directly on the face. With her face. Meaning, her lips managed to make direct contact with his. It wasn't gentle, either. She fell hard, and would have gone straight off the bed if Adrien hadn't been hanging upside-down directly in the way. Their teeth clacked and a shocked wordless exclamation escaped her, dragging his lips open as she spoke due to the fact that they were pressed _so firmly_ together. She was still falling, so his automatic reaction was to tense his arms and catch her. All he managed to do was destabalize her even more, because the instant his arms locked around her she started to flail.

After a split second of frantic, spastic, arm-flapping, Marinette managed to break away (knocking their noses harshly together in the process) and finish falling off the bed. She landed on Ivan's floor in a heap of limbs and polka-dotted pajamas, where the tiniest, most high-pitched sound he'd ever heard began to ease itself from her chest.

Adrien chanced a single glance at Mylene, Juleka, and Alya, who looked apologetic, mortified, and over the moon (in that order). Then he eyed the pile on the floor that used to be Marinette. His face _burned_.

"Told you I wouldn't fall," he wheezed, and then a moment later he was hauled back up onto the top bunk by three very amused boys.


	27. Missed Connection

A prompt done for an anon and for this-was-a-terrible-idea on tumblr.

* * *

 **Missed Connection**

* * *

"He is so fast!" Adrien hissed as he dodged yet another pink laser beam. The beam glanced off the brick wall behind him, almost touching his tail (which he whipped out of the way). Ladybug was forced to dodge it too with a quick back handspring. "Why is he so fast!"

"I'm going to assume that is rhetorical," Marinette panted. This fight had been savage in that they hadn't been able to let down their defenses for even an instant. The second they tried to switch to offense, those blasted pink laser beams shot out from Connexion Manquée's smart phone, sending the two heroes leaping away in fear. It had only taken about five seconds when they first arrived on the scene to understand everything about this akuma.

(1) Judging by all the shouting about online presences and missed opportunities and fake women and nice guys, he had been walked out on during some kind of Tinder date. "Gee, I wonder why," Chat Noir drawled at Ladybug, who was currently rolling her eyes.

(2) Judging by the way he both protected it and screamed about it, the pesky butterfly was undoubtedly lurking in the phone in the akuma's hands.

(3) Judging by the flashy glittery rays of light shooting from its screen, the phone was also being used as the primary weapon.

(4) Judging by what happened when the dynamic duo dodged the Connexion's first direct attack at them, they realized that _under no circumstances_ could they risk being hit.

When Chat dodged right and Ladybug dodged left, they both turned to watch where the light struck in order to better understand what they were up against here. As they did, they saw a group of innocent bystanders that had gathered under the awning of a local pub, eyes wide in alarm as the light rocketed toward them. Marinette gasped and Adrien cried out in warning, but it was already too late. The light struck the group and dazzled them all out of sight for a second before fading. When it did, both Marinette's and Adrien's hearts stopped. The girl in the forefront whirled around to grab the girl behind her and yank her into a sudden, passionate, _very_ physical kiss–followed with enthusiasm by the other four people.

"Oh no," Marinette whimpered. There'd been only one akuma with a power like this before.

It had been _bad_.

"Ohhh yes," Connexion hummed, and sent a flurry of lasers at Lady and Chat while cackling madly.

Thus began the chase.

They were now three hours in and no closer to turning the tables on Hawkmoth's latest soldier. As long as Connexion had that phone with that–that _light_ –Ladybug and Chat Noir were too afraid to go within even thirty feet of him, lest history repeat itself in the most mortifying, agonizing way.

Adrien followed Ladybug up the side of the brick building they were now cornered against, trying his best not to stare at her as she loped side to side on the string with that elegant swinging stride of hers. Was she thinking of the last time too? Oh, who was he kidding, of _course_ she was. How could they think of anything else with this guy chasing after them, trying to hit them with his creepy love magic? Adrien had to wonder if Hawkmoth had sought Connexion out for the express reason of torturing them. After all, that power had proved _so effective_ against them last time, hadn't it?

On the roof, Marinette snatched Chat Noir by the arm and hauled him down through a skylight for a momentary reprieve. They'd been doing all their scheming this way today. Stolen moments behind trash cans and inside chimneys and underneath trucks–until Connexion inevitably found them and sent them scattering again like frightened mice.

It was so unlike them to fear an akuma this way. The frustration with the way this battle was going was written plainly on Ladybug's face, and Adrien could sympathize. If he could reach Hawkmoth right now he would punch him in his damn ugly face.

"Running away is an unsustainable strategy," Marinette said as she landed on the floor below the skylight and released Chat Noir. It appeared they'd entered a small art gallery, perhaps a museum of photography. Although despite being well lit by the sunny skylights, it was empty for the time being. The middle of an akuma attack was probably a poor time to go art-gazing, now that she thought about it. "We need to do something! We need to get that phone away from him."

 _Before he hits us,_ Adrien heard in the subtext of her strained voice. Her entire body was like one tensed coil. Ready to spring.

"I know," he said. The yawning architecture of the gallery amplified his hollow voice, and echoed it back from every crevice and alcove. "I'm out of ideas though, Ladybug. We've tried just about everything short of running at him head on."

"We can't do that," she said immediately. "We can't…"

"I know," he sighed again. "I know." The photograph next to him had been blown up to cover a portion of the wall taller than himself, and pictured a black and white canyon with a person silhouetted at the edge. "We can't get hit."

If possible, she tensed even more. She hated how hurt he sounded. As if he was assuming she believed this was all his fault or something, which was absurd. "Last time…" His ears perked toward her but he didn't turn. _Last time._ They had never talked about it. Not even once. "Last time we were out of the count for two whole hours, Chat." Fidgeting in place and wringing her hands, Marinette was sure her face would burn off from the embarassment of bringing this up. "It could have been a lot longer if the Ladyblog girl hadn't come up to the roof and dumped water on us like that. We can't let that happen again."

Only now did Adrien turn away from the monochrome canyon to look at her.

"Do you remember it?" he asked softly. He hadn't meant to ask, but the question had been searing him from the inside out for three straight months, ever since it happened. Now that she had opened the gate he couldn't help but walk through it.

Stoicism was a weird look on him, and Marinette didn't know what to make of it. She wrung her hands even more. "Sort of," she admitted. The hazy memories flared up on cue. _One hand tracing her ribs and the other on her neck. The pressure of the wall at her back making her feel like molten metal between a hammer and an anvil. Hot breath and acid eyes. Warm and heavy and wet and–_ "B-bits and pieces of it."

The blush on her face had been a constant all throughout the afternoon, but now it was deepening into a crimson that touched even her ears and her neck. "Uh.. me too," he said, a little breathlessly. Bits and pieces that had haunted his every waking moment and invaded his every dream since that day. _The rake of her fingers on his back. The taste of her tongue. The way she rocked her hips into his._

"Ladybug…" he began. Uncertainty filled every syllable.

"No, please don't apologize," she whispered. "That's why I never– Please, just don't apologize. I know you're about to. But it wasn't your fault so it's not your place to say sorry. It was just unfortunate that it had to happen that way, you know?"

Adrien blinked as her interesting choice of words settled. "Yeah," he laughed. "I know. I, for one, can think of a few much more preferable ways for it to have happened."

Marinette blinked back. Did he just…?

The skylight shattered above them.

"There you are." Framed against the sapphire sky, Connexion beamed down on them from above.

"Break's over, bug!" Adrien grabbed Ladybug by the wrist and sprinted toward the nearest door, not at all missing the way he had nearly broken her with that last statement of his. If he hadn't grabbed her she might very well have stood frozen there until the Connexion pulled her miraculous merrily from her ears. But as soon as they left the vaulted showroom, she came to life and led the way through a series of connecting hallways until they came out into an even bigger showroom filled with even more alcoves and photographs.

Marinette glanced wildly around the room, noting that the museum goers had largely fallen victim the Connexion's spell. With the akuma himself right behind them, she zipped around the corner into the nearest alcove–a small cubicle with one photograph per wall–and looked to Chat Noir with a panicked expression.

"I have an idea," she blurted. "Or, I've been brewing it for awhile, I just didn't think we should, I mean it's kind of a last resort–"

The akuma's voice bounced off the ceiling and around the labyrinth of walls. "Look at that, such a beautiful sight. A room full of happy connections. And you two soon will join them. Come out, little cat. Come out, little bug, and play…"

Hoping to calm her, Adrien gripped Ladybug's shoulders. "Look, I trust you, Ladybug. What's the plan?"

The manic way she bit her lip, then, and the tentative reach of her hands toward his collar, made his heart begin to pick up pace in his chest. "Close your eyes and detransform."

"Wha..?"

He had barely registered that incredible request when she squeezed her own eyes shut and a flash of red light appeared at her feet. It was in startled panic that he closed his eyes. _She's detransforming right in front of me!_

"Sorry," she whispered, and before he was even finished detransforming she was kissing him.

The aching urge to open his eyes was instantly eclipsed by the feeling of her lips on his. So this was her plan, then. And what a plan it was. All the dreamy half-memories in the world couldn't compare to the real thing. Somewhere in the showroom he knew Connexion was searching for them, and could hear the akuma's lame insults as he tried to goad them out of hiding. But it was so blissfully unimportant compared to Ladybug's shaky breath as she paused to gauge his reaction to this plan of hers. She was standing on her tiptoes, he realized, so he bent his head toward her, one hand brushing tentatively at her cheek. The urge to open his eyes came back full throttle.

But he kept them closed and kissed her again. "Good plan," he whispered. He wished he'd thought of it three hours ago. He wished she'd thought of it last time.

"Let's make this convincing?"

 _God yes. Let's._ Adrien locked one arm around her waist and pulled her flush against his chest, and she reconnected with him instantly. The first had been a peck. A tentative test to make sure he was okay with it. This time Ladybug _kissed_ him. On some level he knew this was just a ploy to keep the Connexion from hitting them with his love ray, but from the way she responded to him with her whole body, he could almost believe that she loved him as madly as he loved her. Before he knew it they were bumping into the wall. A framed photograph teetered on its nail and fell, the glass shattering at their feet. Alarm coursed through him. Shit! They were trying _not_ to draw attention to themselves!

Panicking as she felt him pulling away, Marinette seized his tie (she could tell by the way his clothes felt that he was wearing a _suit_ under his transformation, and it was a shockingly huge turn-on) and pulled him back into the kiss. Connexion was no doubt on his way over now, and they had to make him believe they'd been hit already or they were done for. Luckily Chat seemed to understand her sudden urgency, and melted back into the kiss with a fervence she'd never experienced before. Or… maybe she had. Just once. The hazy memory of their akuma-influenced kiss tugged at her subconscious once more. The way her back pressed against the wall now triggered a sudden surge of clarity as she thought about it, and it was a very dangerous line of thought. They had kissed for _two hours_ that day. That was a lot of time to get creative. (Not that she had watched the questionable LiveLeak video… Okay, not that she had watched it more than once.)

Speaking of which, Chat had now moved on to her neck.

Marinette sucked in a breath and her hands clenched in the fabric of his dress shirt.

Taking that as a green light, Adrien set out to explore every inch of her neck with his lips and tongue. The memories of the last time they kissed may have been blurred by the akuma's influence, but he _distinctly_ remembered her moaning and he desperately wanted to hear that again.

"What have we here?"

The akuma's sudden voice to their right sent a jolt through Ladybug's body, but to his credit, Adrien went on kissing her without faltering. For the greater good, you know?

"Ah, just another pair of lovebirds," Connexion muttered to himself. "Wherever did that pesky duo run off to?" He continued muttering as he walked away, leaving the civilian Lady and Chat there without a second thought.

As Connexion's voice faded, Adrien laid one last kiss on the crest of Ladybug's shoulder beside the strap of her soft sundress. But instead of letting him pull away, she tugged him back to her lips.

"Not yet," she whispered, and kissed him again. They'd have to keep going until they were absolutely sure Connexion was gone. For the greater good, you know?

By the time Ladybug's hands slid off his chest, almost ten minutes had passed. Ten minutes of absolute heaven. He gave his tongue one last trace of her lips before reluctantly pulling away, careful to keep his eyes tightly shut. No matter how much they burned. No matter how his heart begged him to look at her face. "You think he's gone?" he whispered.

"I'll check. Cover your face so I don't see you."

When Marinette opened her eyes, Chat had one hand strategically placed over the upper half of his face. As her eyes adjusted to the light she couldn't help but examine him–the juxtaposition of his windblown golden hair with a crisp, top of the line suit. Was that–huh. It was. Gabriel brand.

Wait. Exactly how wealthy was Chat Noir?!

"Is he still there?" Chat whispered, and Marinette jumped, as if she'd been caught staring.

She peeked around the corner, eyeing the scattered couples as they kissed amongst the art. "No. He's gone."

"Thank god," he laughed. "Now that he's off our tail, we can finally get the jump on him."

"Y-yeah." So casual. So cool and collected, like always. How was he so calm all the time, even in the face of this? It was infuriating!

"So. Um. Bon jue?" he laughed, and this time Marinette caught a bit of nervousness under that cool outer shell. "We can never talk about this again, if you want."

She heard the subtext loud and clear. _Just like before._

"Actually…" she said slowly. The lapel of his jacket was so soft. His frown twitched into something more neutral as she toyed with the material between her thumb and forefinger. "We should probably talk about it this time."

"Oh. R-really?" Her presence in front of him was like a growing fire, and it was all he could do to keep his hand over his eyes.

"Well don't look so surprised," she said, feeling more flustered than she'd ever been in her life. How dare he make her feel this way. She wanted to kiss that smug look right off his face. "Let's–let's just transform and get back to to the fight. We can talk about this after. Tikki, where did you run off to?"

Two kwamis zipped out from under the broken frame on the floor at their feet, Tikki with her hands pressed to her cheeks and Plagg with an expression of extreme disgust painted on his face.

"You guys done sucking face?" Plagg deadpanned.

"Oh hush," Tikki giggled. "It was a brilliant plan."

"I'm inclined to agree," Adrien smiled before recalling Plagg to the ring. Once Ladybug had done the same, Adrien was finally free to open his eyes. Ladybug had her eyes glued to the floor like it was the Mona Lisa, and even though he was pretty sure now that she was into him and pretty sure she enjoyed that kiss session just as much as he did, he still had to be certain. "Hey. You okay, lovebug?"

'Lovebug' was by no means a new nickname, but perhaps in context it was too much. Scarlet blossomed on her cheeks below her mask and her eyes whipped up toward him, her whole face darkening into a deadly glare. Startled by her reaction, Adrien took a full step back. In their four years together he'd never been subjected to such a glare before. Had he crossed a line? Should he apologize? Her eyebrows continued to furrow and her pout deepened and she began to stomp toward him, raising a fist as she went. An insane thought crossed his mind, as she grabbed the bell on his collar, that she was going to punch him. But instead she yanked him down and kissed him full on the mouth.

It was over before he could do much more than blink in astonishment.

Too soon she was releasing him. Her face burned and her eyebrows were still furrowed as she turned away and left the safety of the alcove.

Adrien was left gather the remains of his wits and follow.

.

.

"So," Chat purred as the cheering crowd closed in following the defeat of the akuma. Ladybug side-eyed him and prepared to jab him in the ribs with her elbow if need be. "I believe my lady wanted to talk to me about something, but I seem to have forgotten what it was. I wonder if she would remind me."

"Not now," Ladybug hissed before slapping on a broad smile to greet the fans and the curator of the Ladyblog. "Hello! Please, one question at a time."

"Care to comment on your brief absence from the battle?" Alya shoved her microphone between Lady and Chat, and carefully noted how they glanced at each other before looking back at her. "I had a bucket of water with me, just in case, but I couldn't seem to find you anywhere."

Ladybug flushed and slapped the microphone away, which inadvertently banged into Chat's chest. "That wasn't necessary!" she rushed, before taking a deep breath and sighing out the tension in her shoulders. Gently she took the microphone back. "We weren't caught in the crossfire this time, Alya. Good superheroes never make the same mistake twice."

Alya nodded sagely. Damn, that was a solid response. Ladybug was a pro at dodging inquiries after the state of their relationship. So she turned to Chat, the resident Loose Lips. "Anything to add, Chat Noir? What exactly were you doing if you weren't struck by the akuma's magic?"

"Um…" Luckily for him, his ring beeped. The whole crowd groaned but Chat sighed in relief. "That's my cue, folks. This cat's gotta run. Until tomorrow, my lady?" He bowed deeply to the partner beside him and bestowed the usual kiss on her hand.

And Alya, shrewd as she was, could not help noticing that Ladybug only remembered to laugh him off at the very last second.

.

.

Tomorrow was a scary prospect for Marinette, who watched Chat leap away from the scene of the ended battle with rising anxiety, scarcely hearing as her own miraculous began to beep as well. Tomorrow on patrol she would see him again. She would have to follow up on her promise to talk. She would have to tell him things. Tell him how she hadn't been able to put that hazy kiss out of her mind for the last three months. How it had forced her to consider her feelings on the whole, and helped her to come to terms with the fact that she was painfully and ridiciulously in love with him– Okay maybe she could save some for later. They didn't have to go all in at once. But still, tomorrow she would have to take at least one step forward. They would move forever out of this weird romantic purgatory into something far more terrifying. Something real.

The more she thought on it, the more 'tomorrow' loomed.

But what Marinette never expected was that 'tomorrow' would be coming today.

As soon as she fell on her bed, detransforming as she went, she was assaulted with a barrage of text messages. Her pocket was practically vibrating her whole body the way it was going off. Pulling it out, she saw they were all from Alya.

 _(girl call me)_

 _(call me)_

 _(call me)_

 _( e)_

 _(call me freakin CALL ME RIGHT NOW)_

 _(MARINEETTE)_

 _(MARI I AM HIGH KEY FREaKN oUT CALL ME BTCH)_

Aaand so on and so forth. A single quick scroll through the messages was enough to send Marinette's heart through the roof of her mouth and out her nose. What could Alya possibly be so worked up over? She wracked her brain while Tikki pondered over the texts a little more thoroughly, trying to recall if Alya was acting weird during the brief post akuma interview. The only thing she could possibly think of would be that she'd somehow figured out that Marinette was Ladybug. What else could have triggered this?

"Calm down, Marinette," Tikki soothed once she too reached the end of the long chain of texts. "It could be anything. Let's not jump to conclusions."

"Right," Marinette breathed. "Right. I should just… I should call her. No, I should go meet her. If this is about Ladybug, well, I would prefer to explain myself in person."

.

.

The moment Marinette arrived at the park, Alya tackled her so hard they both went falling onto the grass. Stuck in a tangled pile of legs and grass stains and squealing, Marinette struggled to gain her bearings. She hadn't pictured the reveal with Alya going anything like this. What was going _on?_

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just so excited," Alya screeched, directly in her ear. "Ugh, and you probably don't even remember!"

At this point Marinette tackled her flat on the grass in order to regain some sort of hold on the situation. "Alya what are you _talking about?"_

"This," Alyagiggled, and reached in her pocket to pull out her phone. Marinette could only watch in disassociated wonder as she pulled up her photos and and went for the most recently saved one, then shoved it in Marinette's face.

It was too close to her nose to even look at.

Marinette slid off Alya and sat cross-legged in the grass, desperately trying to compute what she was seeing. It was picture of two people kissing. _Two people really going at it, like oh my god, this is so nsfw, why does Alya even have this saved – oh dear, that is my sundress. The one I am wearing Right Now._

"That.. is me?" she squeaked aloud.

 _Alya saw me. She saw us. This is me and–_

"And who else?" Alya goaded maniacally.

 _Chat_ , she thought immediately, and her brain set about screaming again. _Look away from the photo! Don't look at his face, you absolute idiot!_

But it was too late. Her eyes were already seeing it by the time her brain realized what she was looking at. She saw the same suit she'd admired earlier today. The same disheveled hair; hair that was normally combed back into a perfect flawless masterpiece, because this wasn't Chat Noir at all. This was–

"Adrien," she gasped.

Alya beamed. "Bingo."

"But– but how–"

"I was looking for Lady and Chat," Alya shrugged. "I saw them go into this art gallery so I went in looking for them and then had to hide from the akuma. Lo and behold, the corner I tried to hide in was occupied. By this." She pointed at the picture with smug elation.

So many conflicting emotions fought for control of Marinette that for the time being she felt almost dead inside. It was like emotional nirvana. After all this time, she had finally been shocked so badly that she couldn't feel anything anymore. Was this was death by electrocution felt like?

"Hey, are you okay?" Alya probed. "I thought you'd be squealing with delight but you look kinda nauseous. Should I not have shown you this?"

"No no," Marinette eked out. "It's okay. You didn't… show anyone though, did you? …Alya? …Please god Alya, tell me you didn't send it to Nino."

Sweating profusely, Alya thought back on the afternoon's events. When she'd found Adrien and Marinette making out in that art corner she had been so full of unbridled glee that she simply couldn't contain it. She'd sent the pic to Nino literally one second after snapping it, disregarding the fact that she was currently trying to hide from a rampaging akuma. For the greater good, you know?

"Alya," Marinette pleaded. "Alya, _no_."

"I'm sorry," she groaned.

But despite her genuine guilt over Mari's discomfort, she was secretly a little bit pleased that this would inevitably get back to Adrien. Someone had to tell that dense boy how in love he was.

 _Alya yes._

 _._

 _._

Six miles away, Adrien looked at the picture Nino had just forwarded him with ever-widening eyes.

 _"Marinette?!"_


	28. The Regular

Inspired by a post by the lovely and talented askmiraculousheroes blog on tumblr.

* * *

 **The Regular**

* * *

"I know you're messing with me," Ivonne grumbled as she wiped down the counters between customers. "I get it, the new girl has to be hazed. Har har." It was like this at every restaurant. At least she wasn't being sent next door to the neighboring restaurant to borrow a '"coffee sponge''' this time

The boy that was training her kept right on counting out one dollar bills with a playful grin. "I'm telling the truth. Every Tuesday at four."

Ivonne only rolled her eyes and knelt to grab the refill box of napkins from underneath the register, where Jasper was making change. "Well it's three till, Jasper. At 4:01 I reserve the right to run you through the espresso machine for messing with my head."

"No need," Jasper grinned. "Here he comes."

Despite herself, Ivonne shot upright so fast that she would've smacked her head on the register drawer if Jasper hadn't quickly slammed it shut. Lo and behold, Jasper told it true. There he was. Chat Noir, in the flesh, pushing open the door and slinking right into the Starbucks like he belonged. The bell dinged behind him as the door slipped shut. Oh man. _Oh man_. Ivonne had seen the town heroes from afar but she'd never had the good fortune to meet either of them face to face before, and truth be told she was a bit of a fangirl when it came to the famed Chat Noir.

 _Keep it cool, girl._ She schooled her face into what she hoped was a lax expression as Chat approached the register. If she made a fool of herself Jasper was never going to let her live it down.

"Hiya, Chat." Jasper drifted over to lurk behind the display case that housed all the baked goods Starbucks offered, and eyed Ivonne with a wordless _'I told you so.'_ "You look distracted today. Everything alright?"

Chat, who had been staring thoughtfully at one of the pastries with his hand on the back of his neck, jumpstarted to life. "Ye– No. I mean, yes. Everything's great!"

"Mhmm." Jasper nodded sagely, then hid his face behind his hand to mouth at Ivonne, _'Lady troubles.'_

Meanwhile, Chat had gone back to staring at the pastries with an even more intense look on his face. _Don't you dare say anything stupid,_ Ivonne warned herself as her mouth opened to speak without her permission. "So what'll it be?" she asked him.

The ears on Chat's head flicked toward the sound of her voice, but the rest of him went right on staring at the pastries. His eyes were glazed over. "Same," he replied absently.

Ivonne blinked. "What?"

A cup appeared on the counter in front of her, and she looked up to see that Jasper had set an empty 'grande' there. Ah. Jasper probably already knew what the hero liked. It was obvious Jasper was holding back a laugh as Chat Noir continued to regard the pastries as though they held the secret to life, the universe, and everything.

"Okay," she said slowly, then picked up the cup and the black sharpie from atop the register. That's when her training reflexes finally kicked in. "Name?"

Only after it slipped out did she realize what a monumentally asinine question that was. She opened her mouth to laugh it off, and–

"Adrien," Chat said.

Ivonne froze with the sharpie to the cup. _What_.

In a panic she looked to Jasper, who appeared equally aghast at what had just come out of Chat Noir's distracted mouth. They both glanced out at the two customers sitting at a table by the window, who were staring as well with matching dropped jaws. Chat went on gazing at the pastries, blissfully unaware. The customer on the left gestured a frantic 'X' signal with his arms, while the other one shrugged at the two baristas manically and turned her attention back to her laptop, presumably to pretend she had not just heard that.

That was… probably best.

Jasper gently tugged the cup and marker from Ivonne's frozen hands and wrote the words 'Chat Noir' on the side.


	29. Ever Since

A prompt done on tumblr for alpacalypticpotatoes.

* * *

 **Ever Since**

* * *

"Chat, I'm serious, stop following me. This isn't working."

"What do you _mean_ this isn't working?" Adrien landed clumsily beside her and the chimney, angry tears filling his eyes. He was trying his best to keep it together, he really was, so Ladybug saying outright in such a decided tone of voice that it _'wasn't working'_ threatened to push him over the edge. "We're not done here yet, Ladybug, we have to follow that stupid butterfly!" As he spoke he eyed the white speck, growing ever fainter against the dying twilit sky. Anxiety gripped him at the thought of losing it, but when he lunged for the top of the chimney to continue the chase again, Ladybug seized his arm and hauled him back down to the rooftop.

"No, I have to follow it," Ladybug insisted. "You, go home."

Adrien gaped at her. "What is your problem?" he spat. "I've done nothing but _worship_ you since the day we met and I've worked my ass off since the day we found out Hawkmoth's identity, and now you're just sending me away like a dog?"

The look on her face suggested he had smacked her, but at the moment, he was too hurt to care. But the seconds ticked on, and her lip began to quiver, he started to rethink his words. But before he could say anything else her face hardened and her lip curled, and she shoved him so hard that his back hit the chimney and stayed there. "What is _your problem?_ " she shouted. "That's _my line,_ Chat, what is _your problem?_ Ever since we found out you've been– I don't even know!" Throwing her hands up, she stepped haughtily away from him to hit him with a long, hard look, but the anger was somewhat dampened by a glisten in her eyes. "You've been off your game," she said softly.

Adrien scowled again. The butterfly had definitely gotten away by now, and that was just _perfect_ , wasn't it? One more day of this bullshit. "I'm sorry, am I weighing you down?"

"What– _no!_ " Ladybug burst. "See, this is exactly what I'm talking about! Of course you're not weighing me down, Chat, you're just not – not yourself! I'm worried about you. You're distracted. Angry. Irritable. You keep stepping into harm's way and I don't know what I'd do if something were to happen to you. I don't think I could…"

"H-hey," Adrien said weakly, reaching toward her but faltering at the last second. Oh, man, he was such an idiot. "Don't cry, Ladybug. I'm sorry. God, I'm such an ass."

"Don't apologize. Just tell me what's wrong."

He'd spent his entire life learning how to school his facial expressions into the exact ones he needed to hide his real emotions. Unfortunately, Ladybug knew him too well to fall for it.

"No, stop," she insisted. "If you say 'nothing' again I'm seriously going to punch your face off."

Despite himself, he smiled.

Ladybug's responding smile outshone his by miles. "Huh, haven't seen that in weeks. Not since…"

Her smile faltered into something more thoughtful, which made Adrien's heart plunge and his blood run cold. Keeping this from her had been not only torture, but one of the most challenging things he'd ever done as Chat Noir. If she even got close to the right track, she would figure it out instantly. She was too clever not to.

"You know him, don't you?"

Unfortunately, Adrien couldn't decide which emotion he was supposed to feel if the true answer was 'no' quickly enough to paint it on his face before Ladybug saw the real answer.

"Thought so," she hummed. "Chat, I know what I said about our identities. I know what I said about talking about our personal lives. But you're my partner. You're my best friend. If you have some sort of connection with Gabriel Agreste, I want to know, not only because it affects our team dynamic but because it's obviously affecting you. Please," she whispered, "just tell me."

"And what if I did?" he whispered back. "What if he was my… What if deciding to keep on fighting him was the hardest thing I've ever had to do?"

"Then, if that were true, I would say that I was proud of you. And…" Adrien's breath caught in his chest as her gloved hand came to rest on his cheek. Warmth radiated from her wide, sapphire eyes and soothed the hurricane that had been brewing inside him for weeks, by the smallest degree, like a candle in the night. "And I would say that I still love you, Adrien."


	30. Loose Lips Sail Ships

So I got some pretty negative feedback when I posted this on tumblr. Like, really negative. Anyway I talked to the main person who had a problem with it and I totally understand now why some people hated this story. Live and learn, I probably won't write in this style again just because it's really not worth it and really didn't work well if that's how it's receieved. But for the sake of posterity I'm not excluding it from this collection. Just know going in, please, that this is supposed to read as a zany, laid-back, sitcom sort of situation and is in NO WAY supposed to be taken seriously. Just assume that the stakes are NOT high and that nobody is truly upset/hurt in this story. It's all one big jokey joke. 3 thanks, cheers

* * *

 **Loose Lips Sail Ships**

* * *

Chat Noir's jaw dropped. Even with that mask covering half his face, Alya could see the red staining his face, creeping down onto his ivory cheeks slowly like a spreading wine stain. "No," he said carefully, and his voice hitched at the end of the syllable. "No, she's not. What on earth gave you that idea?" He looked nauseous.

Amazing. Alya could scream.

Instead of screaming, she gave him a soft grin. Something reassuring to lure him into a false sense of security as she carefully stepped between him and the club's exit. The akuma was gone, and he hadn't even used his trump card to defeat it, so he was in no danger of a forced detransformation anytime soon. Therefore Chat (who famously adored both her and her blog) had no excuse to duck out of this impromptu interview without confirming the suspicion that he was hiding something.

"It's not really my idea," Alya answered belatedly. She reached over the bartop, where the employees were too busy cleaning up the mess the akuma had made of their bar to notice Alya steal a handful of orange slices. "Someone posted it on the blog about a week ago, and it spread like wildfire. Even the major news stations have begun to speculate. Surely this isn't the first you've heard of it."

"No," he said. "It's not. But it's still ridiculous." Chat looked directly into the camera lens and rose his voice to say, "For everyone wondering, and you can take this as my official statement on the matter: Ladybug is not pregnant."

"Uh-huh. So where exactly is she then? What is she doing? It doesn't really seem like her to just go on a months-long vacation from being a superhero. We're all worried about her."

"I told you," he scowled. "I'm not at liberty to answer that. And the weekly videos she posts on your blog should be enough to placate any fears, don't you think?"

"Videos shot from the neck up," Alya pointed out. "Suspicious, isn't it?"

"No," he ground out. "No, I really don't think it is. Y'know, Alya, one of the reasons I like you is because you're usually above all that gossip stuff. But this is starting to feel like a tabloid interview."

The jab rolled right off her shoulders, and she pointed one of her orange slices at him. "Tabloids aren't concerned with the facts. I am. The fact is, no one has seen Ladybug in person for almost four months. Yes?"

Chat Noir crossed his arms, and it took him a few moments to realize that she wasn't asking rhetorically. "Yes," he agreed reluctantly.

"Except for you. Yes?"

"Yes," he said, growing increasingly exasperated.

"So you can see why some people are a little angry with you, and wary of the secrecy, right?" Not that she was. But, there were some of the more avid Ladybug fans that wanted Chat Noir's head for this.

"Yes, yes, and so what? What is the point of–"

"And you agree that Ladybug hasn't shown herself below the neck in one of her 'hello Paris' videos in almost three months, yes?"

 _"Yes–"_

"And the baby is yours, right?"

" _YES, ALYA,_ _the baby is_ –"

"HA!" Alya crowed so loud and spazzed out so suddenly that everyone in the bar jumped and looked at them, and she almost dropped the camera. Chat paled so quickly it looked like he'd been shot.

"O-oh shit. _Shit_. Oh my _god_ , you sneaky little– Alya, please don't air this."

"Sorry, kitty, but this is a livestream." She turned the camera toward her face and gave her audience a giddy laugh. "That's right, you heard it here first folks! There's nothing at all to worry about. Our bug is happy and healthy and fine. She's just _pregnant_ , that's all!"

.

.

Fifteen minutes later and four miles away, Marinette Dupain-Cheng stared at her computer screen as the rerun of the interview finished playing, with fury turning her face from pink to red to purple. Seeing this, Tikki slowly backed away on the desktop, then flitted off all at once to take cover. A hormonal Marinette was not to be trifled with.

The sound of the sliding glass door opening behind her sent the rage into a whirlwind. She wheeled around to find him standing there with the most frightened smile she'd ever seen. Good. "Hey, babe… Funny story…"

"You better start running," she said.


	31. The Truth

Prompt submitted by ming85 on tumblr. Consider this fic a very heartfelt thanks for your constant support ✨

* * *

 **The Truth**

* * *

Gabriel Agreste lived a transient life. Hardly a week went by when he didn't leave the city on some errand or another, and when he did, he flew. There was the private jet for the quarterly trips to Japan, Korea, and America, and for other less frequently visited but equally distant corners of the earth. For the destinations within sight of the horizon, he usually took the helicopter. Climbing in now from the roof of the _Gabriel_ headquarters, Gabriel straightened his tie and took the headset off its hook, ready to deal with the unavoidable 'headset hair' that would follow this journey across the city.

While Gabriel was settling, Adrien slung himself up into the helicopter with a confidence that suggested he planned on flying it himself. The pilot turned around and greeted Adrien with a warm smile and a wave. Any oral greeting would have gone unheard beneath the thudding rotor above them. Adrien waved back with equal familiarity and put his headset on, pausing a moment to fiddle with his mic before speaking into it. "Hey, Jas! It's been awhile. How are you?"

The audio came through both the pilot's headset and Gabriel's. "Oh, you know. Your father keeps me busy."

At first Gabriel wasn't sure what she meant by that, but then the wink she gave him before turning her attention to the dashboard caught him so off guard he almost blushed. If he didn't know better, he'd mistake that for an innuendo! Gabriel made the unfortunate mistake of catching Adrien's eye as the helicopter left the landing pad. His son, who had recently crossed the threshold into his twenties, had grown up into far more cunning a man than Gabriel had ever envisioned when that golden haired child brought him seashells on the beach, drawing pictures in the sand… Adrien was giving him that 'cunning' look now, across the backseat of the helicopter. Furrowed eyebrows and a scarcely hidden smirk. Gabriel stared back blankly. _Whatever you're thinking, no._

His son's smirk only deepened. But instead of saying anything, Adrien turned his attention toward the view.

Below them, the city of Paris was falling away. The midday sun glittered on every window and car, and rippled along the surface of the Seine like a gas fire all the way through the heart of town, until it disappeared in the distance around a bend into a southern arrondissement. Gabriel watched two morning doves scatter below them, spooked by the thunder of the helicopter blades. Instead of meeting back up again, the doves parted ways. One flew north and the other passed briefly by Gabriel's window.

"So." Adrien's voice crackled in the headset, but Gabriel kept his eyes on the fleeing dove. "What's up with you, Jas? Dating anyone?"

Gabriel flashed Adrien a warning look, but his son was staring intently at the city below, with that sparkle of awe that had always been there. Adrien has always been as enamored with heights as his mother had been. It was only Gabriel who'd never cared for them, which was ironic, considering the nature of the miraculous Jacqueline had left behind in his care.

The sound of Jas's laughter came through tinny and crackly, but somehow still more alive than most of Gabriel's other employees. It had a surprisingly soft and girlish lilt to it for someone who wore no makeup, sported unnatural shock-red hair with an undercut, dressed in mostly leather, and whose muscles (hidden beneath her aviator jacket though they were) suggested that she could lift a grown man over her head and throw him ten yards. "I think I'm a little old for you, Adrien," she said, once she had laughed herself out.

Adrien didn't bat an eye. "Oh, you know I'm off the market," he replied slyly, "but I know someone who _really_ needs a date, if you're interested. I think you guys would make a good match."

"Is that so?" she said. Gabriel glared at his son, but Adrien was unfazed. The glare just didn't inspire the same fear and obedience that it used to. "Since when did you become a professional matchmaker?"

"Since you didn't say 'no' when I asked if you were dating anyone," he grinned.  
"Would you mind if I came up?"

"Sure, kid."

"Adrien, sit down," Gabriel worried. "Put your seatbelt back on." The sight of his son removing his seatbelt and standing up sent Gabriel's heart into his throat. Jas may be an amazing pilot, but that didn't mean Adrien needed to act like an adrenaline junkie and move around the helicopter midflight. Of course, Adrien simply ignored his father and wiggled his way from the backseat to the front, dropping in beside Jas with excitement. "Always liked it up here better," he explained. "I mean, look at this view!" To punctuate the statement, he leaned toward the front dash and positively vibrated in place at the edge of his seat.

"You really are your mother's son," Jas laughed.

Gabriel tore his eyes from them and settled them back on his own window. It was true. Adrien had inherited his love of flying from Jacqueline.

Gabriel could only hope that he wouldn't inherit her love of leaving as well.

For the remainder of the short flight Gabriel switched his headset off. Whatever Adrien was up to with Jas, he wasn't really interested. Only when they arrived in Meaux did he switch it back on, to direct Jas on which helipad to descend toward. Adrien was the first out when they hit the ground, stretching his long legs as he went and shooting a wave and a thumbs up back at Jas before striding toward the door on the roof. Gabriel opened his door to follow, but paused when he spotted Jas peering at him around the edge of her seat.

Only now did he realize it might have been wise to listen to what Adrien had told her. That boy sure had a mouth on him.

The roar of the blades above them began to die, and Jas mirrored his motions when he removed his headset and set it on its hook. "Gabriel," she said. The casual use of his first name was a testament to the length of her employment with him. What had it been? Fifteen years, now?

"Yes?"

"Were you listening to the conversation Adrien and I were having on the way here?

His lips pressed into a fine line. "I'm afraid not."

If he wasn't mistaken, a bit of relief colored her face. "Okay. Well, he said some interesting things. And I was wondering–"

"Jas," Gabriel interrupted softly. "I do have some sort of idea what you were talking about, and I'm afraid Adrien was mistaken."

"…Oh." A few strands of hair fell off her shoulder and across her cheek. The midday sun seemed to set them on fire.

"Don't misunderstand," Gabriel backtracked. Her stoic face betrayed no emotion or investment in this topic, but still, he intensely disliked the idea of hurting such an old friend's feelings. "You're very…" Here he faltered. He'd never been very good with words.

An amused smile cracked the ice on her face. "No need for that," she laughed. "I'm not upset. But, just so you know, if you ever _are_ interested… I'd love to."

Gabriel cleared his throat. "Duly noted."

Adrien was waiting just inside the stairwell when Gabriel pushed the heavy door open and flooded the dim interior with daylight. He had that 'Christmas morning' look in his eyes. "Well?" he burst. "What did she say? What did _you_ say?"

Gabriel pinched his nose and tried not to scowl. He was working on that. _Resting bitch face,_ Adrien liked to call it, and if he ever wanted to stop hearing that godforsaken phrase then he had to do something about the scowl. "Adrien, if you ever try to set me up with anyone again, I will ship you off to a convent in Siberia."

"Aw, come on!" His face fell and he glanced at the open door, where across the rooftop Jas was now lounging in the pilot's seat with a waterbottle to her lips, awaiting their eventual return. "She likes you! And it's _obvious_ you like her too, so what's the problem?"

"It's none of your business."

"Père." Adrien stepped toward him, lowering his face as he did so. Despite the fact that it had been like this for at least four years now, Gabriel would never quite be used to the fact that his son was as tall as him, and looked him directly in the eyes when they spoke. "It _is_ my business. We're family, and I want you to be happy. You know that, right?"

"I know."

"And it's been twelve years," he added quietly. When Gabriel abruptly turned and started down the stairwell, Adrien grabbed him by the arm to stop him leaving. "Don't do that. I'm not a kid, anymore, and I don't want to do this silent, guessing-game bullshit with you anymore either. I'm _so beyond_ done with that, and I thought you were too, all things considered. I tell you what's going on in my life, now. It'd be nice if you returned the favor for once."

Gabriel pulled his arm from Adrien's grasp, but didn't yet resume his descent. Everything was easier when Adrien was a child, and too timid to speak his mind.

He sighed. Easier maybe, but not better. That much was clear to him now, from this vantage point on the past which he'd spent years climbing.

Gabriel looked up at his son, playing with the truth on the tip of his tongue; the last little secret that Gabriel had stubbornly held onto.

When Ladybug and Chat Noir finally found him, Gabriel had felt almost relieved to be defeated, and to have the butterfly miraculous torn from his lapel. He was tired of abusing it just to goad Jacqueline into coming back. Tired of playing the villain in a useless attempt to light the fire he had married in the first place. Wherever Jacqueline was, if she had ever heard of Hawkmoth or the terror he caused with the power that was meant for good, it hadn't been enough to lure her home. In the end he knew that it had always been futile. She wouldn't have left them if she wasn't sure that she didn't want this life. She wouldn't have left _Adrien_ if she wasn't sure.

The longer Gabriel took to answer him, the more Adrien's face softened. It was incredible, Adrien's capacity for forgiveness. When Chat took off his ring on the night they defeated him, Gabriel had been certain their relationship was over. But instead that was when it began. Maybe Jacqueline had meant Gabriel to replace her when she left him her miraculous, pinned to a note that contained only five cold words that could mean five hundred different things. _I can't do this anymore_. (To this day these words still swam before his eyes in a calligraphic font when he lay his head down at night.) And maybe there were a thousand different reasons he desired her return. But the biggest one now, eclipsing all the others, was the desire to show her the hero she had created by accident. The one who had replaced _both_ of them. The one who saved Gabriel from Jacqueline's ghost.

Even now, even here, Adrien was still trying trying to save him from her. So perhaps Gabriel owed him that last little secret.

"I still love her," he admitted quietly.

Adrien's eyes widened in surprise. The shock was probably more from the honesty than the admission itself, which Gabriel had always considered obvious. Still, the truth mattered. The dazzling sunlight from the open doorway reflected off both the ring on Adrien's hand and the butterfly on his collar, catching Gabriel's attention. The truth always mattered, even if it was ugly.

"Thank you for telling me," Adrien finally said, and just like that, a pressing weight that Gabriel didn't even realize was there had lifted off the stairwell. The whole space seemed warmer and brighter as Adrien passed him on the steps, turning around at the middle landing to cast a happy glance his way. "Come on, we're gonna be late."


End file.
